The Great Treasure

Keep thinking of those words we just sang, with everything, with everything, we will shout to your glory.

We will shout to your praise.

What does that really mean?

What does that look like in our lives today in 2013, Hong Kong,

as we head into the Christmas season already, things are up everywhere,

and we're realizing and seeing things we need to buy and things we need to consume,

and treasures that are hidden, and we're looking for things that have incredible value.

We're looking for things that are deals to everybody else, but to us, they have incredible worth and value.

We're looking at the last week of Jesus' life.

He's been leading this large crowd of people to Jerusalem.

He knows what's going on.

Some of them might have an idea, but what we see later on is they really don't have any idea of what's going on.

And the treasure they're hoping for when they come to the kingdom,

where when the kingdom comes to them,

when he exalts himself in the temple is power and strength and force and control.

And what Jesus is continually showing us and continually showing his people is that his kingdom isn't like that.

And if we think it's like that, then we're wrong.

What he says is instead God's kingdom is like a baby born in a manger, not in a palace.

It's a suffering servant who comes on the back of a donkey instead of a riding white stallion with power and shields and a warrior.

And Jesus is telling them, he's telling us that his kingdom is this spiritual kingdom.

That it's going to come slowly and steadily, but it will grow into this amazing plant, this family that will take over the earth.

It will transform everything.

And so he continues to teach them these truths through these parables.

And these parables are just stories.

These parables are stories that everyone in his time would know and that we should know.

But he brings in spiritual truth in there and he interweaves how God's kingdom is actually working.

We've looked at three parables today.

I have stayed up a couple nights, actually.

One of them was waiting for Christina to get home from the States and hoping that everything will be okay.

And that I have some help.

But the other part is figuring out how to present this passage.

Worried that we might miss it.

Worried that the words that I say might not be exactly what Christ wants you to hear.

Because there's confusion in dialect.

There's confusion in speech.

There's confusion in cultures.

And my prayer is that as we listen to God's word,

that we would allow his Holy Spirit to talk to us and to change us.

And that we would ask questions right now.

What does with everything mean to you?

Right now, what is the treasure?

What is the hope?

What is it that you're putting all in on?

That you're hoping that God will come through for you and do?

And Jesus is talking to his disciples.

He's talking to us and he's teaching us these things.

And in these parables, there's three things I want us to see or understand or try to begin to get our head around.

Take that next step in our spiritual journey about the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven.

They're going to be interchangeable.

Usually when you're talking to a Jew, you don't say the kingdom of God because it's God's name.

And you don't want to blaspheme.

So you would normally say the kingdom of heaven.

And it's interchanged in this Gospels of Matthew.

And he says the kingdom of heaven.

Sometimes and sometimes he says the kingdom of God.

And sometimes he says a relationship with God.

But they're the same thing.

And we realize this kingdom is happening right now.

It's spiritual.

It's all around us.

But it's not fully.

It's not yet.

That it's going to come back and come fully sometime in the future.

And we're looking at these passages trying to understand, well, then how does that affect my life?

And what should I do with God's word in this process in the here and now?

So there's three things that stick out to me this week as we've been kind of pondering this and looking at this.

And these things are that the kingdom of God is often hidden.

It's invisible.

And it's not easy for some people to see.

And when it shows itself, it shows itself in unexpected ways.

We see in here that the kingdom of God is priceless.

That when people see it, it causes something radical to happen in their life.

They do crazy things.

Crazy man things, right?

They do things that if you don't know what's going on and you look at them, you're saying, that guy's a fool.

But this is what the kingdom of God does.

It's so precious that it causes us to do crazy things.

And then we see that when the third thing is that the kingdom of God, or when we get it, when we get the treasure,

or maybe I should say when the treasure or the kingdom gets us, when the kingdom gets us, it transforms everything.

It changes everything in us.

It changes who we are.

It changes our source of joy.

It becomes this treasure so priceless that we do anything to get more of it and to hold on to it.

First, the kingdom of treasure, the kingdom of God is invisible.

And sometimes people don't see it.

And sometimes it's seen in unexpected ways.

Remember, Jesus is teaching his disciples.

He's teaching us about his kingdom.

And so he uses these parables.

And you look in verse 44, and what you see is the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field,

which a man found, and he hid again.

Now there's some questions about, was he ethical?

What's happening there?

If he wasn't ethical, he would have just taken the treasure because he was a worker.

He was just digging in this field.

And so he finds it, and he hides it.

He finds it unexpectedly, and everybody listening to Jesus would have understood what was going on.

I mean, Israel is this land bridge between Europe and Africa and Asia,

and armies for thousands of years have been whipping through there.

It's kind of like the only other country I think is comparable to it is maybe like Poland.

You know, Poland just has the armies going through back and forth, back and forth.

It's the land bridge.

And so when people are there and they have a treasure, they don't take it to a bank.

I mean, there weren't banks in Jesus' day, but they wouldn't take it to a bank because banks weren't safe,

because they would just get rolled over by the army coming through the next week.

And so Josephus, who's a Jewish historian who was captured by the Romans,

he's given us a lot of insight into life back then.

And he basically says that people, what they would normally do is they would bury treasure in their house.

They'd bury it in the wall of their house or in the floor of their house.

But if they were in a war-ravaged area, that would be impractical because houses were always raised,

and people would always break down the walls looking for them.

And so the best thing that people would do is they would hide these treasures in a field.

Usually they would hide them in two places, he said, if they were really smart.

Because fields were massive, people didn't have time to go through those.

And what happened is armies came, and armies went, and people died, and treasures were buried,

and people were taken away in captivity, and people forgot where the treasures were.

And so there was treasures everywhere.

In verse 45, he says, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls.

But the word he actually uses for merchant is wholesaler.

That this person is a bargain seeker.

He's looking for things.

We know that he's incredibly wealthy.

Because to be a pearl merchant in Jesus' day, it was one of the most costly things to own.

But he's a bargain hunter.

He's going out there.

He's like the show of the pickers.

He's going into people's houses and trying to find junk

and trying to see if he can kind of turn it and make a quick profit.

But he's out there, and he's looking, and he's digging through these pearls.

Every one of you were given one when you came in,

and you were told that it was a treasure of great value,

and to be careful and hold on to it.

And so he's digging through these things,

and all of a sudden he comes across something so unexpected, so amazing, so out of control.

It was there in front of everybody's eyes.

Everybody could have seen it, but they didn't see it because it was hiding itself.

And Jesus says his kingdom, having a relationship with him,

spiritual truths, the value of knowing him is not often obvious to everybody.

He says many people are going to walk by.

Many people are going to walk over.

Many people are going to walk around.

Many people are not going to see.

They're not going to look.

They're not going to care.

I mean, some people, they're going to come in.

They're going to look for things.

They're going to look for peace.

They're going to look for hope.

They're going to look for a date.

They're going to look for a spouse.

They're going to look for power.

They're going to look for success.

Some people might even come in, and they might even look for religion.

They might look for ways to do things, a list of do's and don'ts.

And if they can do these things and they do enough of the do's and not enough of the don'ts,

the things and a little of the don'ts,

Then they can accomplish all these things.

And then somehow God just kind of magically owes them

because they've done so many great things in their life.

But these people, they don't really value Jesus.

They don't value a relationship with him.

I wonder how many people walked by the treasure in the field and didn't see it.

I wonder how many people dug through the pile of pearls

and never saw that pearl that was of incredible value.

I wonder how many people walk by churches every Sunday

and wonder, why would somebody go in there?

Why would I waste my time going to church?

I mean, I got rugby practice.

I don't have time for these type of things.

I got other treasures.

I want to cling on to.

The question today for us is,

what treasure are we holding on to right now?

I'm not going to ask you to yell it out.

I'm not going to ask you to write down a piece of paper.

All you know, you know it in your heart.

But what is that treasure you're holding on to?

Is it Jesus?

Or is it something else?

What are we clinging on to?

The next thing the parables tell us is that the kingdom of God,

when it comes, when the treasure shows itself,

when it exposes itself to us,

that it causes us to do radical things.

It causes us to do crazy things

because we see this priceless treasure, and it's amazing.

Now, we don't know in verse 44 what the treasure was.

We don't know what was hidden in there.

It could have been gold.

It could have been clothing.

It could have been a mantle.

It could have been anything.

We don't know.

But we do know what 45 and 46 are.

I mean, in Jesus' day, pearls were amazingly precious.

I mean, they were the most expensive thing you could own in Jesus' day.

The Talmud, which is the collection of Jewish writings by scholars and rabbis,

they basically say that pearls are beyond price.

And so when Jesus uses these analogies of pearls,

everybody would have gone, whoa.

That's the most expensive thing there is.

I mean, we're told by historians that Romans worship pearls,

that one of the emperor's wives had this outfit that she would wear off into gatherings,

and it was made totally by pearls, and it was worth about $300 million.

We're told that sometimes when they had banquets,

that people would actually take a glass of vinegar

and dissolve pearls in it and drink it to show how wealthy they are.

I mean, we do that sometimes.

You know, in Hong Kong, we scatter gold over cakes, right,

and let people eat the gold and show how wealthy we are.

Well, on Jesus' day, what they did was they drank pearls to show their wealth.

One historian said that the Romans got this practice from the Egyptians

who created it to this massive, massive art of worshiping pearls.

And we're told by Pliny, who was this historian back then,

he says the person who worshipped them the most was Cleopatra.

And she had these pearls that were amazing.

In fact, he says to us that she had one pearl that was worth 25 million days' wages.

25 million days' wages.

How much do you make in a day?

Her pearl was worth 25 million denarii.

Historians tell us that that would have been about $4 billion today.

One pearl.

And pearls were incredibly costly.

They were incredibly dangerous.

We're told that, you know, I've been reading about this,

and I can tell you anything you want to know about pearls now.

You know, Christina's kind of cluing in on these things

before we bought these pearls and all the different types of pearls.

And, you know, it takes about 1,000 clams to get one pearl.

And usually in Jesus' day, what they did to get pearls was

they would just tie a rope and a rope around a guy's legs.

And they got them in the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean

and sometimes the Indian Ocean.

And they would tie a rope around the guy's legs with this massive rock.

And they would just push the rock over the boat.

And the guy would just go, bloop.

And he would go all the way down, like a quick descent, all the way down.

And he had a knife in his hand all the way down to the floor.

And he hit the floor.

And if it wasn't too deep, he could survive.

He would cut the rope.

And then he would swim around.

And he would shuck as many pearls as he could get.

And if he found a pearl, he would try to make his way up.

And the survival rate for pearl drivers was zero.

And so everybody in Jesus' day knew that when he says that this pearl guy

found this pearl of incredible value, that it was amazing

because pearls were perfect.

You couldn't add to their beauty.

You couldn't take away to their beauty.

It was everything.

And Jesus tells us that when people find the perfect thing,

when they find the perfect treasure,

when they find the kingdom of God, they do crazy things.

They act out of control.

The passage says that they sold everything.

In Aramaic and in Greek and in Hebrew, when I broke down the words,

it means everything.

They sold everything.

They sold their underwear.

They sold whatever they had, anything that was a possession of theirs,

they sold that so that they could get that treasure.

I mean, it was out of control.

It would be like me.

Let's say I'm walking down the street and I see this old watch shop that I go to

because I like to look at antique watches.

And I see something in there and I come back home that day

and I've listed everything that we have on Asia Expat and Craigslist

and all these things.

And Christina comes in and my books are there with price tags on them

and everything else is there and price tags.

And she's looking at me, what are you doing?

And I said, well, I just, I just, we got to buy this watch store.

See, that little, that little dumpy one we walk by all the time.

We have to buy it.

You're selling your underwear.

Yeah, I only need one pair.

And she takes two or three more and kind of puts them off to the side.

No, you need more than that.

But we're selling everything.

And she goes, well, how could you possibly, why do you want to do that?

I said, I walked in there and I was digging through the treasure and stuff

and I found the most expensive watch in the world.

It is the most expensive, the most precious watch in the world.

And no one knows it's in there and we got to buy this shop

because he's going out of business.

And if we don't buy it, somebody else is going to get it.

And no matter what it's worth, we got to get it.

Now, some of you are thinking, what's the most expensive watch in the world?

I'm wondering if I should tell you that or not.

I guarantee you'll never get it.

But what he's saying is that I sold everything to get that watch shop

because there's this watch in there that's worth everything.

Are you saying that it's like you?

You find out from your friend that your apartment that you don't own,

you're renting it, is being sold off to the developers.

And the developers are going to come in and no one knows that,

but every apartment in your block is going to be worth 1,000 times more

than it's worth now.

And so you're just selling everything.

You're borrowing money from your aunts and your uncles and your relatives

and you're like, we got to buy this apartment.

They're like, why?

It's just a small little dumpy apartment.

I understand that.

It's like 400 square feet, but we got to buy it.

It's going to change everything.

And so they risked everything.

There was no buyer's remorse when they bought these things as we often have.

The passage says that they risked it all because they knew that it was worth all.

And Jesus says that his kingdom, having a relationship with him,

understanding spiritual truths, being counted among God's people,

being counted among God's children, being taking part in God's plan,

sacrificing the things that the world deems important,

but we know are worthless.

He says all of those things, they don't even compare

to having a relationship with him.

Now, please hear me.

I'm not saying that you can earn or buy your salvation

because salvation is from God alone.

And it's a gift.

And we can do nothing to earn it.

But there is something involved in receiving it.

You remember the story of the rich young ruler in Luke 18?

I mean, we studied it like two months ago.

Luke 18, they're going to Jerusalem,

and this rich young ruler comes to Jesus,

and he says,

Hey, good teacher,

what must I do to inherit eternal life?

What must I do to get the kingdom of God?

Now, remember, he's very wealthy.

And Jesus asked him some questions.

You know the story.

Go back and read it.

Luke 18, you've got to read it tonight before you go to bed.

Jesus says,

Well, love your neighbor and love the Lord your God

with all your heart, mind, soul, and body.

And the guy who was very confident and very proudful

and very intelligent and very rich said,

I did that.

But what he didn't know is Jesus knew what his treasure was.

So Jesus looked into his heart.

And he knew that he couldn't give him the treasure of the kingdom

if there was another treasure already there.

And Jesus said to him,

Well, one thing you have to do then,

you need to sell all that you have

and come and follow me.

Remember what the passage says?

It says he walked away sad

because the treasure he had

was more important to him

than the treasure of the kingdom.

His treasure, Jesus tells us,

was wealth.

Now there's some people you know.

Some people I know.

Maybe there's some people in our churches

who want to be a part of both kingdoms.

They want to be a part of God's kingdom.

But there's something holding them back from their old life,

from their old way of living.

There's something from their old treasure

that they continue to hang on to and cling on to.

And so they want to be a part of both worlds.

They want to be a part of both kingdoms.

They want to have the kingdom of God.

They want to have Jesus.

They want to have a relationship with him.

They want to fill that treasure up into their life.

But they also want to hold the other treasures in their life,

their idols and the things that used to give them happiness

and power and importance.

And Jesus says in the passage

that the only way you can receive his kingdom

is by a transference of treasures.

that we have to see him as so precious

that whatever we have to give away

is nothing.

Let me ask you the question.

When you look at the parables in verses 44, 45, 46, 47,

when the guys are selling everything,

is that a sacrifice for them?

I mean, when I'm coming home

and I'm selling everything to buy the watch shop

because I want to get that 1963 Omega Speedmaster

that Neil Armstrong wore on the moon,

the most expensive watch in the world,

and I know it's there,

the most precious thing.

There'll never be another watch like that.

And I'm selling my underwear and everything else.

Is that really a sacrifice?

The passage asks us,

what are our treasures?

The passage asks us,

what do we sacrifice

for his kingdom?

What is there that we sacrifice for his kingdom?

What is it that we've given away

because we realize that it's a treasure

that we've held onto,

and if we hold onto that treasure,

then we can't truly receive

all of the treasure that God has for us.

1990, I had the incredible privilege

of living in mainland China,

and I was teaching in a university,

and God had brought some people into my life,

students,

and just saw our relationship change

and the gospel come into their life,

and this one guy in particular,

I'll just call him Tex,

because we didn't ever call people

by their real name.

And Tex and I had been meeting

for about six months.

He was an amazingly brilliant student.

He was on the fast track

to becoming a government official.

He was actually about to get entrance

into the Communist Party.

He was the first person

from his village to go to university.

And we were sharing

just the gospel and the Bible

and things like that.

And there was a part of me

that was afraid to ask him,

does he want the treasure of Christ?

I'll confess that.

Because I knew that he would have

to give up everything.

And when I looked at my life,

I felt kind of shameful.

Because as I looked at my life,

I really didn't really give up

hardly anything

compared to what Tex would have to give up.

And so we got together

that Thursday night

and we were talking

through these parables.

And we came to the point

and I asked him,

what is your treasure in?

And he shared.

I said, what does this passage tell us

our treasure should be in?

And he said, Jesus.

I said, do you want to invite Christ

into your life?

And he looked at me and he said,

Tobin, if I do that,

it will cost me everything.

I'll lose my scholarships.

I'll lose my entrance

into the Communist Party,

which was a big thing in 1980s,

early 90s.

I'll lose my family's respect.

My family will be shamed

in the village

because they're the first people

to send someone to higher education

and everybody looks at them

and my parents take incredible pride

from all of this.

If I do that,

I will risk everything.

And I said, yeah.

Maybe.

And then he looked at me

and he says,

but if what you're telling me

is true

and I don't do it,

I've already lost everything

that really means anything.

I looked at him and I said,

yeah.

Right.

Jesus says that when we see the kingdom,

it will cause us to do crazy,

crazy things

and we will sacrifice everything

for him.

Our actions outwardly

will look foolish.

People will not understand it.

They will wonder.

They will just say,

you've had so much

and you've given up certain things

and you might have to say,

yeah, maybe, maybe you're right.

But you gain everything.

Let me ask you a question.

Let me ask you a question.

What have we given up

for God's kingdom?

What's the treasures

that you've hold on to

and you continue to hold on to

that are so precious

that are more precious than Jesus?

Maybe another way to ask this,

and I've been asking myself this,

is

has anybody ever called you

a fool

because of your faith?

Has anybody ever said

the things that you're doing right now

will end your career

and you will be foolish?

Jesus says that sometimes

when we find the treasure

that it is so precious

it will cause us to do things

that will make us look foolish,

in front of other people.

Finally, we see in this passage

what he says here

is that when we get the treasure,

when we get this treasure

into our life

that it changes everything.

It's going to change all of us.

In verses 44 it says this,

in verse 46 it says this,

you read verse 44 and 45,

what does he say?

He says,

he went out and he hid it again

and for the joy over it

he goes and he sells everything

that he has

and he buys that field.

And the idea again is joy.

What does that joy look like?

And the thing that weirds me out

sometimes when I read this passage

is that he had joy

before he had the field.

I mean, he's selling everything

and he doesn't even have

what he's getting

or hoping to get.

And as he does it,

his life is changing

and the treasure becomes

so important to him.

It's his goal,

it's his thought,

it's this thing that will

change everything

that it's not a sacrifice

and as he's moving

in that direction

his life is changing

and he realizes

that it's the best thing

that he's going to do,

it's the best trade

that he's ever had,

it's the best transaction

that he'll ever make

because he knows

what is coming

and his life

is now characterized

by joy.

Joy.

That's a very interesting word,

isn't it?

I mean,

you should probably

ask yourself

or ask ourselves

what does it mean

for us to have joy today?

I mean,

sometimes we translate it

as being happy

and fun and great

and what a joyous day.

That's not how

the Bible translates it.

C.S. Lewis says it like this,

he says,

joy is this deep

inner longing

that you have.

Joy is this ache

and you're on this journey

and you're trying

to feel this ache

inside of you

and sometimes people

can be in their homes

and feel empty.

Sometimes people

can be with their husbands

or their wives

and they can feel empty.

Sometimes people

can be the top

of the company

and they feel empty.

Sometimes the people

can have all the money

they'll ever need

and the three houses

and everything else

and they feel empty.

And Lewis says that

that's because

we don't have joy

and joy is this deep longing

that we get

when we know

that we found

the perfect thing

to satisfy our souls.

How are we doing

in the joy department?

Do you feel joy today?

I mean,

are we happy

as God's people

for all that God

has done for us?

Do we understand

how precious we are to Him?

Do we understand

what He's done

to bring His Son?

Do we feel

this understanding

and we look towards

the future

and realize

that everything

is going to be okay?

Jesus is asking

in the parable

and He's asking us

in our life

as we live out life,

He's basically asking us

what brings us joy?

I mean,

what are we hoping in?

what is it

that we are hoping

will bring us joy

in our life?

And He says here

in this passage

that this treasure

that they're looking for,

His kingdom,

a relationship with Him,

knowing Him

and loving Him

transforms our lives.

And Lewis says,

it meets that deep longing

perfectly.

Maybe a great question

for you

as you go to work

next week

as you're talking

to people about things

and you're wondering

how do you talk

about the gospel of people,

just start talking

about joy.

And have a kind of idea

of what joy really means.

It doesn't just mean happiness.

It means feeling

that emptiness

in your life.

And ask that person,

what brings you joy?

What are you holding on to

that will bring you joy?

Maybe if you're a single

and you're out

at Lan Kui Fung

and you're talking

to your friends

and you ask that guy

or that cute girl,

hey,

what brings you joy?

And they say,

you do.

You do.

My wife's laughing.

I never use that line

on my wife,

I promise.

But what the passage says

is if that person says

that you need to run away

because there's no way

you are going to meet

that deep,

empty longing

in another person.

maybe if you're really

brave kids,

you're some kids

still in here,

go to your parents tonight

and say,

hey,

what brings you joy?

And your parents say,

getting you into Harvard,

Oxford,

Princeton,

that right nursery school,

getting those grades,

seeing you do

the best you can,

having you perform.

That's what brings me joy.

Kids,

if your parents say that,

you look at them

in the face

and say,

mom and dad,

I love you,

but I'm not God.

And one day,

I'm going to let you down.

And if you're looking for me

to feel that deep,

longing,

empty space

in your life,

I'm going to fail you.

Because the only thing

that can do that

is Jesus.

Please hear my heart here.

I'm talking to you

and I'm talking to me.

But often when I talk

to Christians,

what I hear

are things like this.

I've lost my joy.

I don't have joy anymore

in coming to church.

I have no joy

in the community

of the believers.

I really don't receive

or get any joy

from serving

in the church.

I totally have no joy

in tithing

and giving my money.

Why should I give my money?

Because I worked so hard

and earned it.

I have no joy

in giving my money

to God's work.

I have no joy

in reading God's word.

I really have no joy

in praying

because it seems like

God never answers

what I ask for.

You know,

when I think about it

in my Christian life,

everything seems

to be a sacrifice.

Have you ever said that?

I have.

And I wonder

when I say that,

have I lost sight

of the true treasure

that Jesus talks about

in these parables?

I wonder sometimes

deep in my heart

if I say that,

that maybe I'm thinking of

and dreaming of

other treasures

and things

that used to give me

fulfillment,

that used to give me

happiness,

that used to give me

what I thought was joy.

You know,

sometimes I even find myself

starting to buy

those things back.

You ever done that?

You come to a place

where you feel so empty

and so unjoyful

that you start searching

for things that used

to give you happiness

and meaning

and relationships.

maybe there's people

in here who've never

given up anything.

Maybe there's people

in the churches

that come

because they just like

the music,

they like hanging out

with people,

it's a great business

opportunity,

it's just a great thing

but when they look

at their life,

they've really never

entered into a spiritual world,

they've never felt the joy

that Lewis or Christ

is talking about

with that treasure

that fills us

completely and totally.

Maybe we've never

done that.

Verse 47 says,

again the kingdom of heaven

is like a dragnet

cast into the sea

and gathering fish

of every kind

and when it's filled

it's drew up onto the beach

and they sat down

and they gathered

the good fish

into the container

and the bad fish

they threw away

and so it will be

at the end of the age

where angels will come forth

and take out the wicked

from among the righteous.

You ever wonder

why he says there's people

who are unrighteous

among the righteous?

He's saying there's some people

in the fellowship

who still are clinging

to the treasures

that used to give them

so much hope and joy

and they look at Christ

and they realize

it's not worth it,

it's not worth it.

But I like being around Christians

because they make me feel

good about myself.

The passage says here

that in that day

there will be a big dragnet

that will come

and all of those people

will disappear

because their treasure

was someplace else.

My prayer for us

as a church family

and as brothers and sisters

is that we would look

at these parables

and we'd understand

what the true treasure is.

He's not talking about

getting the perfect spouse.

He's not talking about

getting the perfect job.

He's not talking about

being secure.

He's not talking about

even having good health.

He's not talking about

getting that Rolex

that you want.

or having God

answer all your prayers.

But the treasure

he's talking about

is so much more greater

than any of those things.

And the treasure

is Jesus.

God is offering to us

a relationship

through his son

Jesus Christ.

And the question is

do we see that

as a treasure?

Do we see that

as precious

will we take it?

when you came in?

When you came in

every one of you

should have gotten

a pearl.

Jesus says

his kingdom

is so much more valuable

than that pearl.

the Bible tells us

that we actually have

a true

older brother

a true

pearl merchant

a true

worker

in the field

someone

who

for the joy

set before him

gave up

everything

to buy you.

How does that

make you feel?

the God from heaven

who had everything

perfect relationship

had everything

when he looked out

he saw you

he realized

that you were

so much more precious

and he gave it all

so that you might know him.

and the treasure

of being called

his children

and entered into

a relationship

with him.

My prayer is

that we would find

joy

in the true

treasure

and we would

share that joy

with the people

around us

so they would

know Jesus too.

how we doing?

Everybody's really quiet.

My hope is

you're going

oh my gosh

I never realized

that's how God

sees me.

Oh man

I never realized

that that's what

God

did for me.

Oh man

even in my sin

and when I'm choosing

not to value him

as a treasure

he sees me

as this treasure

that's so amazing

that he sacrifices

everything

for me.

My hope is

that you would

carry this

pearl around

this week

keep it in your pocket

keep it in your purse

we touch it

once a day

say

more valuable

more valuable

more valuable

more valuable

Father we just

thank you for this day

we thank you for your

mercy

and for your grace

realizing

Lord

that

each of us

is on a journey

the next step

looks so different

for each one of us

but the truth is

is that you value us

more than the most

precious things

we can even imagine

and so you send us

your son

I pray for those

of us in here

who struggle

with this

I pray Lord

that they would

see as Lewis said

that those things

that we cling to

on this world

will soon depart

and they will

leave us empty

I pray for those

of us who've

never seen

Jesus as precious

and wonderful

and beautiful

that you would

open our eyes

to this truth

and that we would

start to explore

this truth

and that we'd

ask questions

of why

why

why

why am I

so precious

to God

and I pray

for those of us

in here Lord

who've realized

that preciousness

but sometimes

just in the living

of life

we lose joy

because we don't

have people around

us speaking truth

and the gospel

and encouraging us

maybe we just

we've gone on

a long journey

away from you

what was precious

once now

seems to be

okay

when I pray

for those of us

who are in here

like that

that we would

realize again

what greater

treasure you

offer us

and how amazing

you are

help us to repent

of our sin

our selfishness

our self-reliance

help us

help us to repent

of the treasures

we cling to

so quickly

because they

will just

disappear

help us to

focus on your

son

the true

pressure

the true

precious

treasure

who came

to buy us

father we love

you

we pray all

these things

in your son

Jesus name

amen

amen

a

cyan

one

one

one

one

was

ou

envojd