God's Treasure

Who knows of the largest gold nugget ever discovered?

I'm going to tell you about it, but it's called the Welcome Stranger.

It's a gold nugget that was found on the 5th of February, 1869.

The biggest gold, alluvial gold nugget, which means it wasn't found in rocks, it was found in soil.

And it's the largest alluvial gold nugget ever discovered. It was discovered in Australia.

How good, hey? It was located and found in, hopefully I'll get the pronunciation

right, but Mollyagul in Victoria, Australia, in the heart of the Victorian gold fields.

Yeah, how good. And there's some good news, well, there's not so good news about

this gold nugget, but it was found by two miners, John Deason and Richard Oates,

and it weighed, when they found it, about 109 kilograms.

When they got rid of all the rubbish that was with it, the gold itself weighed 70 kilograms.

That's a big bit of gold, isn't it? And, you know, it was buried only a few

centimeters below the surface.

Wouldn't you love to be out in your backyard one day? Only a few centimeters

below the surface, and it was amongst the roots of a tree.

And one of the miners was just swinging his pick, as miners do,

and he hit something unusually solid.

And it wasn't a rock, it was gold. And they actually had to break it into pieces.

Here's the sad news. They had to break it into pieces because it was too heavy

to lift and too big to weigh on the scales that they had to weigh it on.

Okay, so at the time, this gold nugget, which weighed about 70 kilograms,

fetched these two miners about 9,381 pound, which in 1869 was a lot of money.

Now, in today's gold price equivalent,

that gold nugget would be roughly worth about $6 to $7 million,

though as a specimen, as a hunk of gold, it would be worth a lot more than that.

Are you ready for the sad news?

The original nugget was melted down soon after into ingots.

So sadly, it no longer exists, this gold nugget.

The original nugget was melted down, and it's an interesting quirk of fate that

these miners stumbled upon one of history's greatest geological finds.

Now, when I get to my message in a little while about what I'm talking about,

and I'm talking about God's treasure in a little while,

I was trying to find a great example to give you, and this wasn't my first choice

about the largest gold nugget ever found.

I had in mind, let's talk about a diamond, a diamond that was found.

And in Tanzania, back almost 100 years or over 100 years ago, the largest...

Pink diamond was found. Now,

the reason why I didn't share that in detail with you is because the first bit

of information I received,

it said that this miner found this diamond and it was so rare and it was a pink

diamond that he decided he was going to give it to the then Princess Elizabeth

to be used on her scepter.

The royal scepter.

But then I kept looking further, getting more information. And it turned out

that was completely wrong.

It was completely wrong. It wasn't found by a minor. It was found by two children.

And it was given to the queen, yes, but not for her scepter,

but for a brooch that she wore on her wedding.

So there was just all this confusion. So I thought, I'm going to go to the Australian

welcome stranger, grab a bit of gold.

So that just shows us that we need to search and get our facts right.

Yeah. You know, even with what I say to you in the morning.

And, you know, I quote the Bible. If you think you go home and check it out,

go home and check it out. We need to check it out.

And thankfully I checked out about this, this, this pink diamond because the

information that I got originally was completely wrong.

So we need to check stuff out. So these miners stumbled upon one of history's

greatest geological finds.

Okay. The Bible tells us of a man who found the greatest treasure of all.

Okay, the Bible tells us of a man who found the greatest treasure of all.

Jesus once said in the Bible, in Matthew 13, 44, the kingdom of heaven is like

a treasure hidden in a field.

The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field.

Now, the comparison came to life when an Ethiopian discovered that hidden treasure.

The kingdom of heaven, on a dry, dusty road leading back to Africa from Jerusalem.

And let me read that account to you because it's an awesome part of the Bible.

Acts 8, verses 26 to 39. Let me read it.

Acts 8:26–39

Now, an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying, Arise and go toward the south

along the road which goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. Wow.

This is desert, it says. So he arose and went, and behold, a man of Ethiopia.

A eunuch of great authority under Candace, the queen of the Ethiopians,

who had charge of her treasury and had come to Jerusalem to worship, was returning.

And sitting in his chariot, he was reading Isaiah the prophet.

Then the spirit said to Philip, Go near and overtake this chariot.

So Philip ran to him and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah and said,

Do you understand what you are reading?

Verse 31, and he said, how can I unless someone guides me?

And he asked Philip to come up and sit with him. The place in scripture which

he read was, he was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before its

shearer is silent, so he opened not his mouth.

In his humiliation, his justice was taken away, and who will declare his generation?

For his life is taken from the earth. And the eunuch answered Philip and said,

I ask you, of whom does the prophet say this, of himself or some other man?

Then Philip opened his mouth and beginning at this scripture, preached Jesus to him.

Now, as they went down the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said,

see, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized?

Then Philip said, if you believe with all your heart, you may.

And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God.

So he commanded the chariot to stand still.

And both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and he baptized him.

Now, when they came up out of the water, the spirit of the Lord caught Philip

away, took Philip away so that the eunuch saw no more, saw him no more.

And he went on his way rejoicing. Just as a little side note,

If you're talking to Philip on the side of the road, and he's explaining the

gospel to you, and he baptizes you, and after you come out of the water, he's gone.

That would have you a little bit perplexed, wouldn't it?

What does it say that the eunuch did?

He went on his way rejoicing. He had a touch from God.

He had a touch from God that day. And oh, what's the sort of touch I want from God?

You know, that even if the person I'm talking to disappears, praise God.

Praise God. So this is just one of many great stories we read in the book of

Acts of how Jesus changed people's lives.

It seems like an amazing coincidence that this Ethiopian treasure,

treasurer, would stumble across the greatest treasure of all.

He was a treasurer for the queen of Ethiopia, but he discovered the greatest treasure of them all.

But as we look closely at this story, we see that this discovery of Jesus was

not nearly as accidental as the welcome stranger gold nugget was. It wasn't accidental.

Why did he, of all the people in the world, find the treasure that day?

Why did he find the treasure that day? Well, to start with, it was because he was searching.

He was searching for a treasure. He was searching for something more.

And the story begins as we read that this Ethiopian had actually gone to Jerusalem to worship.

He'd gone to Jerusalem to worship and he was sitting in his chariot reading

the book of Isaiah on his way back from Israel or from Jerusalem.

Now, Israel and Ethiopia are about two and a half thousand kilometers apart.

One way, two and a half thousand kilometers.

And he traveled this, so it means this Ethiopian man traveled two and a half

thousand kilometers to worship in Jerusalem.

And he was still reading his Bible on his way home.

Now, the interesting thing to note here is this, there's an obscure command

in the Old Testament found in Deuteronomy 23 in verse 1.

You can read that later. I'm not going to put it up on the screen,

which makes this man's dedication, this Ethiopian eunuch man's dedication even

more impressive because he was a eunuch.

And this commandment in the Old Testament says that he's not even allowed in

the temple during these ceremonies.

So this Ethiopian man rode in

total about 5,000 kilometers 5,000 kilometers

just to sit in the foyer just to

sit in the foyer he obviously knew

God as well as he could but he

wanted more okay he was seeking

a deeper more intimate relationship and as we read as he read Isaiah's prophecy

of Jesus what was actually happening is he was catching the first rays the first

rays of the rising sun in his life of Christianity. That's what this man was doing.

Who will find God's treasure today? Who will find God's treasure today?

Anyone, if you're seeking, if you're seeking, you will find it.

Anyone who is willing to look will find God's treasure.

It's like searching for buried treasure, though you may have to dig because

you have to dig sometimes God's treasure out from under a pile of world religion,

perhaps, or false belief.

Sometimes you have to do a little bit of digging to find the truth,

just as I had to in relation to that diamond.

It had to do a little bit of digging. You have to wade through some preconceived

ideas or a handed down family religion, perhaps.

Sometimes we have to dig through that stuff to find the treasure of God.

But God has promised that all who search for him can and will find him.

If we search for God, we can and we will find him.

The Bible says in Deuteronomy 4, 29, But from there you will search again for the Lord your God.

And if you search for him with all your heart and soul, you will find him. What a great promise.

What a great promise. It's not you may find him. If you search for him, you will find him.

Many people are content in life to discover religion or creeds or doctrine,

but the real treasure, the real treasure goes to those who settle for nothing less than God himself.

We need to search for God. We need to search for God.

How many people have sat in church every Sunday since they were a child,

yet have never truly discovered the riches of a deeper, meaningful relationship

with God because they never wanted more or they never knew that there was more available.

Maybe they never realized that there was more.

Some are too busy with their families or their care or careers.

Others maybe expect God to come to them.

And others, again, are still, will even reject the very idea of God and his love.

But if we are wise and we put everything that we have in discovering God's treasure, you know what?

God's treasure is eternal and its worth is immeasurable.

And it's available to us if we search for it.

I think there are a lot of people like this Ethiopian man sitting in churches

across the country who just aren't content with doing the church thing.

They want more. They want God. They want to find God.

And if you are one of these people, if you are looking for something more,

trying to sift through traditions and doctrines, keep looking.

Keep looking. We should never be satisfied with the religion when what we need

is a relationship with a God who loves us.

Like what I said about the sparrows at the beginning of the service,

God loves those sparrows. How much more does he love you?

So we need to seek out God with all our heart, the love of God.

So the Ethiopian actually represents a lot of people who read the scriptures

and are looking for God, but they just haven't found that treasure or that nugget.

They may need someone to show them the way. Would you be one of those people

that will show them the way?

As the story continues, Philip ran over and heard what the Ethiopian was reading,

and he asked him, do you understand what you are reading?

And he answered, how can I understand unless someone explains it to me?

Then he invited Philip into his chariot to climb in and to sit with him.

And when Philip gave the Ethiopian an opportunity to learn more about God's

word, he didn't get the door slammed on his face.

He didn't get the door slammed on his face.

This treasurer or this Ethiopian was humble enough, humble enough to admit to

a complete stranger that he did not understand what he was reading that day.

He could have told this aggressive preacher to get lost, slam the door in his

face, but then he would have been the one that was to be lost.

He'd been reading from, as it says in our scripture this morning,

he'd been reading from Isaiah 53, verse 5 and 8, which says,

Isaiah 53:5

and let's read it out now, that he was pierced for our rebellion.

Crushed for our sins.

He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so he could be healed.

He was led like a lamb to the slaughter. And as a sheep is silent before the

shearers, he did not open his mouth.

The Ethiopians questioned to Philip that day was, who is Isaiah talking about?

What a perfect segue that is. Isn't that the sort of segue you want when you're

talking to one of your friends?

Who's this Isaiah talking about? What?

And that's exactly what Philip did. The Ethiopian listened to Philip as he told

how Jesus sacrificed his life on the cross so that our sins could be forgiven

and we could be reconciled and reunited with God.

And Jesus' sacrificial death was prophesied by Isaiah more than seven centuries

before Jesus was even born.

That is not what the Ethiopian had been taught in the worship service that he

just left as he was sitting in the foyer.

He'd learned the truth and discovered the good news because he was willing to

listen to somebody's point of view. What about us?

What about us? Too many religious discussions end with slammed doors and closed

minds, raised voices perhaps, and lowered respect for friends.

Clenched fists, and closed Bibles.

Are we willing to calmly investigate another perspective?

Do we do our own thinking, or do we simply accept what our preacher,

our professor, our friends, or our spouse, or our parents tell us to believe?

We need to do some searching. the creator of Charlie Brown and Snoopy. Who was that?

Charles Schultz. Charles M. Schultz was his name. Did you know that he was a committed Christian?

Charles Schultz was a committed Christian who also wrote and drew a humorous

little book titled, I Take My Religion Seriously.

Okay. The subtitle is, I get into arguments almost every day.

So the title of his book is, I take my religion seriously.

The subtitle is, I get into arguments almost every day. Who can relate to that?

In it, he provides a few witty little nuggets, like when he says,

don't bother me, I'm looking for a verse of scripture to back up one of my preconceived notions.

Or, I used to consider myself an authority on the book of Revelation until I

came across someone who had read it.

How willing are we to listen to different ideas about God? Okay.

Jesus and the Bible. How willing are we to listen to other ideas about Jesus and the Bible?

Now, there are a lot of different ideas out there.

Some are good, some are bad, and some are just plain crazy. Who's read a few of those?

Yeah, yeah. But sharing our thoughts and our feelings about God and listening

to others may help us see things in a different way, okay?

It may help us understand something that didn't make any sense before,

or maybe you could help someone else to come to a better understanding of who

God is and what kind of relationship God wants to have with us.

Now, I'm not suggesting in any way, before you start thinking,

what is he talking about?

I'm not suggesting that we go off on any wild flights of fancy or that we We

entertain a theology that isn't grounded in reality.

I don't want us to do that. Just as in Philip's conversation with the Ethiopian,

everything we think or believe must be tested in the light of Scripture.

Amen? It must be. Our opinions have to be tethered to God's word.

Yeah. Yep. But truth never suffers from investigation.

Did you hear what I said that? What I said there? You can investigate all you

like. I'm an ex-detective.

You can investigate the truth all you like.

The truth is the truth.

The word of God is the truth. And we have to be aligned with the word of God.

And by sharing the reason for the hope that you have with gentleness and respect,

you may just help somebody else find God's treasure.

So finally, in addition to being willing to look and listen,

this treasure was also willing to leave his past behind, okay?

As they rode along, they came to a small body of water, and the eunuch said,

look water, look water, why can't I be baptized?

You can, Philip answered, if you believe with all your heart, you may.

Now, this Ethiopian man was willing to leave his past behind.

As treasurer for his queen,

there's little doubt at all that this Ethiopian was

certainly an intelligent and industrious man

okay his religion was good

he was comfortable with it he knew its customs he understood its theologies

he taught high morals and had probably benefited it which had probably benefited

his life but now Philip was suggesting that he give it up for something even better.

Judaism. This eunuch, he was Jewish.

He worshipped Judaism. Okay.

Judaism is powerless to grant salvation.

Okay. What must have gone through his mind? Change religions?

Go against my family? Offend my friends?

Start over? Admit I've been wrong all this time?

Nevertheless, he desired God more than the approval of people,

and he was willing to do what many are unwilling to do, to leave everything

else behind and follow Jesus.

This Ethiopian man. Philip evidently said something about baptism in their discussion.

Philip spoke to him about water baptism because the eunuch interrupted their

traveling Bible class to point out that they were passing a suitable place to be baptized.

It says in the Bible that they were going through desert country.

They were going through desert country. And since this was a desert,

this Ethiopian may have thought, if I don't ask now, there may not be another

river or lake until after Philip leaves.

Baptism in the Bible. I'm going to start talking about baptism here.

Baptism in the Bible always marks the turning point in a person's life,

the point at which they leave their old life behind and begin a new life with God.

The Bible says in Romans 6 verse 4, for we died and were buried with Christ by baptism.

Romans 6:4

And just as Christ was raised from the dead by glorious power of the Father,

now we may also live new lives.

Mark 1 verse 4 says, And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness preaching

Mark 1:4

a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

When this Ethiopian man saw water, he didn't hesitate or procrastinate.

He wanted to demonstrate his devotion to Jesus immediately.

And his baptism signified a change in his life.

From that moment on, he may have been rejected by his friends.

Ostracized for his family, or even persecuted by Jewish officials.

But Jesus said in Matthew 19 and verse 29,

And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother

or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much

and will inherit eternal life.

This Ethiopian, there's little doubt he may have been wealthy before his journey,

but he left this scene a far richer man, a far richer man.

In heaven, he will never regret that decision that day, nor will we regret our

decision. Come on up for me, Josh.

So like the merchant who found the one pearl of a great price and went and sold

all that he had in order to buy it,

so this Ethiopian treasure was traveling down a dry, dusty road,

discovered God's greatest treasure.

What was God's greatest treasure?

Nothing less than Jesus himself.

But unlike the miners who happened upon the welcome stranger gold nugget, it was no accident.

The treasurer discovered God's treasure because he was willing to look for something more.

He was willing to listen and he was willing to leave his past,

change his life and be born again. What an awesome story.

In the last view we ever get with this Ethiopian man, he's not mentioned again,

but in this last view we ever get of him, he's pictured with a smile on his face.

The last verse of our reading says this new Christian went on his way rejoicing.

He was rejoicing. because He found the Savior.

I've got an invitation. I've had some invitations over these last few weeks

for you. I've got another invitation for you today.

Maybe you're looking for something more, something better.

Maybe you've heard something this morning that you've never quite understood before.

Or maybe you're ready to leave your past behind and begin a new life.

If you're searching for God's treasure, excuse me for a second,

if you're searching for God's treasure, it can be found in here.

It can be found in here. Keep reading it.

Keep reading it. The Bible is your map.

It's your map to find your gold nugget.

Dig into it today. Dig into your Bible today.

Jesus loves you. He loves every one of us.

He's calling you this morning. He's calling us all.

The Bible says, whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

And that means you, means all of us.

You don't have to clean yourself up either. First, just come as you are.

He'll accept you. He'll forgive every sin. He'll break every chain and give

you a brand new life. If you're ready, what I want you to do with me is pray a prayer with me, okay?

Pray this with me right now and mean it with all your heart,

okay? So let's pray now. Come on.

Let's pray and I invite you to pray after me, okay? Repeat after me.

Lord Jesus, I believe you are the Son of God.

I believe you died for me and rose again.

Forgive me of my sins. Wash me clean and make me new. I turn from my old life.

I follow you from this day on.

Thank you, Jesus, for saving me.

Amen. Amen. If you've just prayed that prayer, welcome to the family of God.

Welcome to the family. This is the best decision you could ever make.

And it's only the beginning.

Please let me know if you've prayed that prayer, maybe for the first time this

morning. Please let me know.

Second of all, we've spoken about baptism this morning.

If you want to be baptised, if you want to be baptised, if you want more information

about baptism, please come and see me and let me know.

Because I want to organise a water baptism service coming up very soon.

Probably when it gets a little bit warmer.

Just a little bit warmer. And Richard and Wendy, if that offer is still available

for your swimming pool, let's do it, eh? Let's do it.

It's a matter of come and see me. Let me know if you want to be baptized.

We'll do some training. We'll do some courses. We will do some teaching.

And then we're going to get baptized.

We're going to get baptized. Who hasn't been baptized before?

Anyone here hasn't been baptized before?

What I used to love, an old church that Angela and I used to go to,

I was a pastor at. We had a big pool at the front of the church where we performed water baptisms.

You'd get maybe a dozen people coming to church that day wanting to be baptized

and they'd get baptized. Then literally the whole church would line up and go, why not? Come on.

And why not exactly? Why not exactly?

Amen. So come and see me afterwards if you're interested in water baptism.

And when I say water baptism, none of this sprinkly stuff.

We're going to go down into the water. Yeah? Yeah.

Sound good? Sound good. Okay. So a couple of reasons you need to come and see

me afterwards. If you prayed that prayer, come and see me.

If you want to be baptized, come and see me.

We're going to have some morning tea. Let me pray quickly. And then we're going

to have some morning tea and a cake for Catherine.

And you need to tell us about your birthdays so that we don't miss out on cake.

I go to Gumnut Patisserie now most weeks to pick up cakes. Why not every week?

Surely there's birthdays every week.

Don't cause us to miss out. Okay, let's pray. Lord, we thank you.

Lord, we thank you for your treasure, Lord God.

Jesus Christ Himself, the Son of God, our treasure in heaven,

Lord God, our treasure in our hearts, Lord God. And we thank you for Him, Lord.

All we need to do is search. All we need to do is get our shovel out and our

pick, and we start digging until we find Jesus Himself.

And it says in Your Word, if we search, we will find.

And Lord, we declare in Jesus' name that we want to search and we want to find. We want to find out more.

We want to be inspired by the truth of Your Gospel and of Your Word.

So Lord, help us with that. Help

us to help one another to search out the truth, Lord, of Your kingdom.

Your kingdom, a treasure. It's been described that.

Your kingdom, the kingdom of God is a treasure.

And we want to search for that treasure and we want to find it.

So Lord, on this journey, Lord, even this week, Lord God, help us,

direct us, move us in the right direction to find out more about your treasure.

And we thank you for that in Jesus' name.