Parables Of The Kingdom

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Let's pray together.

Faithful God.

One who is faithful.

And right now in our congregation, there are persons even this week who've experienced you as a mountain mover.

And they can say, yes, I know this is true.

I've seen it again.

And not you move mountains because they deserve it because of something in them, but you move mountains and they deserve it because you are a good father who deeply cares and best cares for us.

And there's some facing giants right now, and they've been going on for months.

And their faith is smoldering, it's flickering out.

Would you send fresh, only explained by the Holy Spirit, hope and belief that you will not leave them on their own.

They don't have to figure it out on their own.

That you have made a way.

And I pray that you would bring rescue soon.

Amen.

Thank you for uh tuning in.

I want to uh just uh you know save the obvious that um we're continuing through this online experience and uh maybe you've fully embracing it.

In some ways, this is similar to our first century brothers and sisters, and our fifth century brothers and sisters, and where God encoded what he wants to say in a book, in letters.

And so, you know, we're gonna be looking at the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 13.

Matthew 13 · chapter mention

Well, at some point, you know, Matthew was maybe teaching this actually to live audiences, live people.

But for the most part, this is encoded, written down, copied, and spread around.

And so God has always been doing distance education, distance teaching, distance using the spirit to affect our souls.

So let's embrace this this morning.

Uh let me start with a story.

Uh, so I have three kids and they're all in sports, and and for most of the time, I had three kids in baseball when they were young in Little League.

And so we'd be three kids, three different teams from March to August.

And so I'd be at my fair share of baseball fields, and they all have a woods around.

And so, you know, practices, all the rest of a foul ball would go, I'd go grab it and bring it back to the coach.

We don't need to be losing baseballs.

And what I discovered out in these little woods that surround baseball fields is there's a lot of baseballs out there.

This may not move your needle at all, but you uh you go into the woods and and you see, oh, this is a pristine pearl, been touched one time, and you go and you pick it up, it's waterlogged.

Well, we just began, I began collecting these things.

Put them in front of dehumidifier.

Uh, my record summer, 212 baseballs.

It's a record.

And we divide them into three categories.

You'd have uh long toss, those are your pearls, uh, live pitch, and then soft toss.

That was just your junk balls that were gonna fall apart anytime soon.

Uh my wife, Jenny, thought I was crazy until my wouldn't you come with me?

And she said, it's just kind of like a treasure hunt.

You go walking around and you go into the woods and you're braving thorns and all the rest, and you come out with, you know, eight decent baseballs.

This morning's text, I'm gonna read it here in a second, pings on this.

This something in us that is searching for, longing for treasure.

If you're a person who is drawn to a sale, drawn to a deal, this pings in us.

We've been woven with the, I want to find the best thing that's hidden.

Let me read the text this morning.

Uh, it'll be really three very short parables that are kind of one unit.

This is chapter 13, verse 44.

The kingdom of heaven is like a 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 he had and bought it.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind.

When it was full, men drew it ashore and sat down and sorted the good into containers and threw away the bad.

So it will be at the end of the age, the angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace.

In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Have you understood all these things?

They, his disciples, said to him, Yes.

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.

Let's walk through this together.

The kingdom of heaven, uh, in the parables especially, this is not a territory, this is not a county, there's not boundaries, this is the rule and reign of God over the hearts of man.

It is the saving and redeeming reign.

This reign is present now, but not fully realized.

So, what I mean by that is there are current blessings of this, forgiveness and acceptance and fellowship, but the fullness of this will not be completely experienced until Jesus returns, where there will be no more sinning, no more injury, no more depression, no more spiritual warfare.

We're in this kind of, we already have it, but it's not quite full.

It's like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man has found and covered up.

All right, so there's no banks at this time, right?

There's no FDIC insured.

Something gets robbed, we're gonna cover this amount.

And so if you've got something of value, you hide it where you think it's safest.

Under the mattress, in the walls, in the field.

And somebody walking through a field stumbled upon this somehow, dug it up, found it, rehit it.

When I was a kid, uh, really from age nine, I uh I would visit my grandma three or four times a year.

She lived several states away, and I would cut it like a little pouch.

I'm not sure what this pouch even contained originally, but I had in it a couple items.

I had a pocket knife, I had a$5 bill, and I had some kind of toy.

And I would, you know, leave it there.

I'd come back to grandma's house and we'd you know, say hi.

And after a little while, hey, you want your treasure?

Oh, yeah, you still got that?

Yeah, she'd bring it out.

I got five dollars, I got a knife, I got this toy, and uh, you want to take it with you?

No, I'll leave it here.

And this this went on until I was 16.

I don't know why.

At 16, I decided I need five dollars, I need a knife, and I don't know, a toy, whatever.

So this was every time I'd see her, I had like a little treasure waiting for me.

This guy in the story, Jesus telling, he found some stash, he rehid it, and he went and bought the field.

Now, this little phrase in his drawer, we're gonna revisit this.

This is super important, we're gonna give its own section.

Says it sell all to buy.

Now, we don't know what this guy's financial means.

It's likely he was maybe on the poorer side because the next parable has a guy who's a pearl merchant, he's on the richer side.

Whatever it is, he leverages all he can get his hands on in order to get this field.

Let me try and put it in terms for us.

Let's say you are at a deer lease, and you're there by yourself, and you and you're kind of digging out an old stump that's in the way of a trail you want to use.

And as you're digging this, you're you're hitting wood, but it's not not roots.

This is something different.

Dig around, you find, oh, this there's a box in here.

Take some more.

Oh, there's more than one box.

You start pulling these things out and stack them up, and you open them, and what you have discovered is the hidden treasure of Sam Bass.

Sam Bass is a bank robber who is supposedly is hidden about$300 million in gold and silver in the hill country of Texas.

Oh yeah, I get excited.

It's apparently still out there.

Let's say you find this, you rebury it, and you go home, and your spouse sees you, and there's bottled-up joy and giddiness.

What have you gotten into?

Nothing.

You can't contain yourself.

You make plans, you try and liquidate everything you can to get the financing in order to make an offer on this property.

Because you can get this thing, you're set for life, your kids are set for life, your grandkids are set for life, you're quitting that job.

I don't need that anymore.

I'm moving to the country, I got a ranch now.

This is an easy decision.

It is filled with joy.

And all along, people see you doing this.

Are you crazy?

You need health insurance.

Are you crazy?

You're where your kids are gonna go to school.

And then when they find out what you've done, that you've gotten this treasure, they say to themselves, I wish I had found that.

The kingdom of God is far more than this treasure buried.

You're not just set for this life, you're set for eternity.

And there's not just a little bit enough for your family, it's for all who would take up this offer.

Point number two this is the second parable.

Jesus is saying, uh, trade all for this kingdom.

Verse 47.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net, or it's a it's like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding a pearl of great value, the pearl of pearls, went and sold all he had and bought it.

So it's likely he's not a poor guy, has some means, he's a pearl dealing in dealing in treasures.

It's a similar point to the first one.

You exchange everything for the kingdom.

The kingdom of heaven is so valuable that to trade all it may cost for it is a happy trade.

It's a no-brainer.

Don't gotta think about it.

If everyone had this situation, they would choose the exact same thing I'm choosing.

It's similar to what Paul writes to the Philippians in chapter 3, verse 7 and 8.

He says to them, Look, whatever gain I had, and he had some gain, he had some status in his culture, I counted that as a loss.

I count that, it actually worked against me for the sake of Christ.

Indeed, I count everything as a loss compared, or because of the surpassing worth of the knowing of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whose sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I might gain Christ.

Paul's echoing the same thing that Matthew records Jesus saying, which is this kingdom is so valuable that when you when you start to when it comes in focus, everything else loses its draw, loses its grip.

Now don't press the details here and think, okay, are we paying for the kingdom?

Uh, does God you know gotta have a mortgage plan?

Don't press that.

People receive the kingdom when they treasure it more than anything else.

The galleria mall, uh, if you're to go down there, you could have the best and most expensive thing that's in that structure.

As long as you're willing to trade for it, as long as you're willing to give up whatever it would take.

The text, you can have the king, the creator God on your side if you prize him more than anything else.

Let's get back to joy.

This is verse 44.

He said, Then in his joy, he goes and sells all he had.

This is an easy decision.

This is not what am I gonna do?

There's no pros and cons.

There's there's no praying about it.

This is I gotta get this done before the terms change.

I'll give you an example.

Let's say there was a billionaire who passed away, and for whatever reason, in uh in the will, there was a significant amount of money set aside for education for persons in Fort Bend County, Fort Bend County only.

And you could apply and um and just prove you're in Fort Bend and prove you're a person alive, and you would get access to an account in your name, and you could use it for yourself, only for education, or your child, or your grandchildren.

And so you take you and you got two kids, you could get one, and your two kids could get one, you get three.

You got a family of ten, you get ten.

But this week only.

Just get down to the Sherland Town Center, get in line, fill the paperwork, and it's gonna, it's boom, here you go.

80K.

Take care of any education needs reasonably, you you'd pursue.

This would be a happy trade.

Everyone would do this.

Everyone in Harris County would be complaining.

Forbidden County, hey, my wife's pregnant.

Can we get a child too?

Sure.

Yeah.

One for you, one for her, and the unborn baby.

Sure.

Now you may be thinking, okay, Blake, uh, this would never happen.

Yeah, you're right.

It never would happen.

Something far more greater has actually happened.

Something that steps on and squashes this little billionaire fake story has actually happened.

You have in your thinking and in your doing, you spit it in the face of God.

He's wiped it off and demanded you repent.

And not demand you repent, or I'm gonna smite you right now.

Demand you repent, or you repent, okay.

I'll give you a job, you can work for me.

No, repent and I will forgive you, and I will adopt you.

This is far better than some billionaire from this county.

And this is true, this has actually happened.

This is the greatest opportunity you'll ever be given.

If you're drawn to a sale, drawn to a deal, this is the greatest deal that's ever gonna be offered.

Now, here's the conditions of this kingdom.

They shouldn't be a shock to you if we've been orbiting church for some time.

Acts 16, we need to believe on him, believe he is the Son of God.

John 1, receive him.

I'm gonna put my trust in him.

Acts 3, turn from sin to repentance.

I'm gonna now try to make progress and no longer do what I want.

I'm gonna stop spitting in his face.

Hebrews 5, obey him.

Matthew 18, humble ourselves.

Matthew, Luke 14, Matthew 10, love him more than anything else.

This is what these stories, these parables are saying.

And then Matthew 13, joy unites it all.

It's not a begrudging, oh, what a burden.

I gotta give up everything to gain entrance into God's kingdom.

I don't know.

I wish I never found out about this deal.

How did I get succored?

No, it's not that at all.

It is free, skipping, jumping, running to this thing.

Let me give this quote by John Piper when it comes to talking about joy and the kingdom.

He writes this Can you make a decision for Christ without the incentive of joy?

The issue is, should you?

Would it do you any good if you could?

Is there any evidence in scripture that God will accept people who don't come to him out of any other motive than the desire for joy in him?

Let me ask you a question.

Does the kingdom of God feel like a great burden or a great bargain?

These last days, is a kingdom in Philly more like a great I have to or a great I can't believe I get to.

If it's the former, if it's a burden, I have to, you need your eyes opened.

This is not what it is.

This is the I can't believe God's letting this work.

I can't believe this is this is the deal he's put on the table.

47 to 49, the last of these three small parables.

The kingdom, the kingdom divides.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into a sea and gathered fish of every kind.

When it was full, men drew it ashore and sat down and sorted the good into containers and threw away the bad.

So it'll be at the end of the age.

Angels will come out, separate evil from the righteous, and throw them to a fiery furnace.

A place will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Now don't press this too far.

They don't think, oh, my bass and my cat.

Don't say taking something in common in their day.

We got fish, they're not all what we want.

We sort the ones we don't want.

The kingdom divide, this will not be offered forever.

When Jesus returns, it's over.

When Jesus returns, he comes as a conquering king.

You know, the the uh Old Testament Jews, they were expecting a Messiah who would come and set up the kingdom and squash the enemies.

And then Jesus, he does all these things, he just comes in stages.

When he returns, it is going to be all the enemies squashed, all the enemies bow a knee.

No, no, no longer getting in the kingdom for repentance.

That those days are over.

Those who prize him, and those who prize something else.

I don't mean just like a lot, I mean the bedrock of what I want to set my life upon is him or something else.

Weeping and gnashing teeth, it just describes the depth of this condition.

The last two verses here.

And these are the most cryptic of all these.

Have you understood all these things?

He asks his disciples, and it's really referring to uh, you know, there's seven parables in this little, this chapter 13, and they say, Yeah.

What else are they going to say?

It says, Therefore, every scribe, and we think of scribes as these are the bad guys in the Bible.

This is really referring more to every disciple, every follower of him who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven, is like a master of the house who brings out of treasure what is new and what is old.

What is new is old, at the very least, what this means is that new truths or new revelation does not eclipse old ones.

Jesus saying, What I'm telling you about the kingdom, this is not brand new.

This is not uh eclipsing or it's not overriding or kind of scratching out and putting in place what God's been saying for ages in the Old Testament.

It's similar to what Luke records Jesus saying on the road to Emmaus, when he meets with the two and says, verse 27, chapter 24 of Luke, and beginning with Moses and all the prophets, right?

So the Bible of their day, he interpreted to them all in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.

The Old Testament is basically about Jesus.

It's basically about Jesus being the fulfillment of the kingdom.

Jesus has always been the treasure which men and women are to put their hopes upon.

He's always been the fulfillment of God's promise in Genesis.

Let me give you a longer quote by Tim Keller that just drives us home, and really no one does this better than him.

That's why I want to use him.

He says Jesus is a fulfillment of all the promise God the Father has made.

And Jesus is a true and better Adam.

He passed the test in the garden.

Adam failed that test.

And his obedience is credited to us.

He's the true and better Abel.

Though innocently slain, his blood demands not condemnation, but acquittal.

He's the true and better Isaac, not just offered up by his father, but was sacrificed for us.

And when God said to Abraham, Now I know you love me because you did not withhold your son, your only son, whom you love from me, we now can say to God, we know you love us because you have not withheld your son, your only son, whom you love from us.

He's a true and better Jacob, who wrestled and took the blow of justice we deserved, so that we, like Jacob, only receive minor wounds that wake us up and discipline us.

He's a true and better Joseph at the right hand of the king who forgives those who betray him and uses his power to save him.

He's a true and better Esther, who didn't just risk leaving an earthy palace, but lost an ultimate and heavenly one.

He didn't just risk his life, he gave it up to save his people.

He's a true and better Jonah.

He was abandoned into the sea so we could be saved.

He's the true, he's the real rock of Moses.

He's the real Passover lamb.

He's innocent, he's perfect, helpless, slain, so the angel of death would pass over us.

He's a true temple, he's a true prophet, the true king, the true sacrifice, the true lamb, the true light, the true bread.

Jesus is the true and better treasure.

Always has been.

And again and again and again in the Old Testament scriptures, it's all pointing to him.

And on this side of history, we get to see, yes, we know what the answer to the question is, what is the fulfillment of God's promise?

Everything in life has this designed unfulfillment.

Have you noticed this?

Everything we can experience has a moment of satisfaction and it just fades.

That's why your drink gets warm or watered down.

It's why the last day of vacation is sad.

It's why the sun eventually burns you.

There's a design that all that you can experience here, and it's good.

It is not the true treasure.

It's a sign pointing us to nope, the true treasure, something else, the true, the true hope, something else, true satisfaction, something else.

It's a point us to the true kingdom.

I'm gonna close with this.

I uh I love a good deal.

Like I really am drawn to it.

I'm the I'm the guy who in college, uh, you want me to sign up for a credit card?

Get a t-shirt in my size?

Uh okay.

Sign me up.

After a couple of these, I realized, oh, I could just give you fake information and just still get a t-shirt.

I'm a good deal fiend.

Love them.

Two weeks ago, Kroger had ribeye on sale for$4 a pound.

Told Jenny, we have got to load up.

Load it up.

Oh, honey, we don't need this meat.

No, we need all the meat.

We gotta fill up everything.

And so I go and I limp to two packages.

There they are, walking out in my joy.

I'm walking out of the store.

Yes, I'd like to buy these.

I go the next day after work.

I go there late in the day, and I don't, I go right to the meat case.

I don't go past the produce and the bakery.

Nope, boom, right to the meat case, and it's empty.

And I go no.

I'm not gonna get any more treasure.

I tell Jenny, all right, listen, tomorrow morning when they restock it, you gotta go at 10 a.m.

because it hasn't been sold out yet.

Oh, we don't know, we need this.

We gotta do it.

I'm excited if it's there, I'm sad if it's sold out.

The kingdom of God is far more than this.

And it has some measure of joy that I'm happy to trade all that would cost me.

I don't see it as lost.

In fact, we sang a song this morning about this.

That my worth is not in my body, it's not my skill, it's not what I do, it's in the blood of Christ.

You don't have to talk yourself into the kingdom thrilling you.

You you can't.

You don't have to pump yourself up.

I gotta, I gotta make, I gotta be happy about this, I gotta be excited about this.

This is a gift of the spirit.

And so maybe this morning, as we uh always do, we pause.

What you do this morning is you pray, Spirit, open my eyes to see things as they really are.

Open my eyes to see that what you would ask me to forfeit or or simply to not post my my hope and help in, it's not giving up anything.

This is the greatest trade I could ever make.

Some of you the prayer, even though we have these questions, is for you to ask, God, would you restore to me joy in this salvation?

Would you would you restore to me um the kingdom to come what I'm looking forward to?

And as much as the things we're looking forward to, we're looking forward to being back together.

I'll seem like a big fat joke right now.

We're looking forward to being back together.

So we're looking forward to return to school.

What we're really looking forward to is a culmination of this kingdom.

And we'll see everything we experienced here that thrilled us for a moment.

All these pointed to, oh, you thought this was good?

You have no idea how great it's gonna be.

Let's pause together and spend a few minutes praying through, thinking through, these questions.

Father, we confess together that we indeed are tempted over and over again to boast in wealth, to boast in might, to boast in our wisdom, and boast brag about it and boast, just put our hope in it.

And you say the one sure thing to boast in is knowing Jesus.

Not just knowing about Him, but knowing Him in the way that we feel like we found the greatest treasure there ever could be imagined.

So I pray this morning for us that reminiscing, musing over this treasure, over what we're gaining in light of what we feel like we could be missing out on.

That this would be this would be a spring welling up out of us.

And and we'd have moments of getting smirked.

We feel like we're getting away with something.

And some would ask us, what is this hope you have?

I've got the greatest deal there ever was.

I pray for some who who, for whatever reason, maybe may be tuning and listening to this, and their heart is not moved.

I pray you would have abundant mercy and overwhelm them to see your kindness.

You wiping the spit in the face of sin against you and offering forgiveness, offering reconciliation, offering restitution.

That this week might be for some families a week of joy, where those who are far away have come close.

May we be people who who are amazed, not just for a moment, but for a week where where I'm unworthy and yet I have so much worth because of the blood of Christ.

We sing this land on us deeply this week.

Amen.

Announcements quite video.

Video?

I should have read the paper.

We have video announcements, we're gonna pause and look at those now.

When Jesus did the work he was sent to do, he told stories.

He used lost sheep, lost coins, buried treasures, vineyards, and remarkably, people to tell the story of what God has done, what he is doing, and what he will do.

When we gather to worship today, God continues to use people to tell the story.

Today you heard the sound of worship, received the message of God's word, prayed with others, and are watching this right now because men and women are serving you in order to bring you God's story.

If you feel compelled to join in, whether it's behind a camera, standing at a mixer, or serving somewhere behind the scenes, we would love to help you find your place.

To take the next step, email Clyde at grandparkway.org.

Let's tell the story.

If you're part of your congregation, you have a place of service here, not where you got to pay your dues, but where you get to experience the Holy Spirit using you, using your gifts to edify the congregation.

And quite frankly, the opposite of that, instead of being someone who's serving the brothers and sisters, it's a consumer who's just taking.

Let me ask you to stand.

So you may be sitting for a long time.

Go ahead and stand up in the living room.

It's time to move to something else.

I want to end our service if we do the blessing.

So put our hands out like this to receive.

Your God has an incredible change of fortune for you.

You've been offered the greatest deal there will ever be.

Count all things are lost compared to knowing Christ and be filled with a giddy joy.

In the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit.

Amen.