Hidden Treasure

I'm excited to preach to you this morning.

This is, uh, my favorite. We're gonna, we're gonna get to

it. My very favorite parable of

Jesus and I've been looking forward to preaching it.

So it's gonna be good. Matthew, chapter 13.

Matthew 13 · chapter mention

So we're in the middle of seven different parables that the Lord

has been laying out. Remember, this is all the same

day. He's he's going through each of

these parables, he's teaching, he's instructing, but all still

all the same day. So if you're watching this and

you know, live action, he was blowing up the Pharisees earlier

today. That was full nuclear for you

and me. It seems like a long time ago,

but that was earlier. And then his mother and brothers

come say, hey, come on, He's, he's out of his mind.

They try and seize him and get him away and then he separates

and he starts speaking in parables.

Jesus makes a switch in his ministry on this day and from

this point forward, he begins speaking almost exclusively in

parables. Why does he do this?

He does this to conceal from the prideful.

It seems as though something happened for him this day and he

goes, that's it. And that's why we have that that

huge Dylan, that huge delineation, that huge marker

moment where he goes, there is a sin that is unforgivable.

We're going, Yikes. And now you see him start to

speak with these, this encrypted language we call parables.

And the disciples going, why do you speak to them in parables?

Why are you doing this? And he goes because they might

see otherwise and go, wait a second.

I thought Jesus wants everybody to see, Well, that's the thing.

The humble people do see. The humble people still do

receive. He's saying, but I'm giving them

what they were pursuing. That is the judgement of God to

give us the thing that we were going after.

That's Romans 1. That's you want that, you want

that, you want that. It's the mercy of God that still

keeps you convicted. It's the mercy of God that still

keeps you restrained. And then God says, all right,

I'll let go of the rope. I'll stop playing tug of war

with you, and you can have all the rope that you want.

And then we gobble it up and say, finally, I have my

treasure. Remember Lord of the Rings?

Have you seen those movies? Gollum in the Ring, it's

precious. What does it turn him into?

It turns him into a monster, destroys his soul, destroys his

mind, destroys his body, destroys ultimately his whole

life. And you remember how he dies in

fire? He dies in fire.

So this is the judgment of the Lord.

And also it's still the mercy of the Lord.

Jesus hasn't changed. It's that Jesus is dealing with

the appropriate audience in the appropriate way at the

appropriate time. Jesus wills that all people

would come to repentance, so he keeps laying out multiple

parables now about the Kingdom. He's told us about the sower and

the seed and the soil. He's given us the parable of the

weeds, and we understand that there's different kinds of

hearts, and we want to have the good soil heart, not the one

that is hard where the enemy steals it right away.

Right away. That's what happens when you're

speaking to that person and you share something with him about

the Kingdom. Satan literally is instantly

stealing that word away. You're like, how could I just

shared it with them? How could there be no faith

there? The devil who is real, stole it

that fast. Actually, that's what's taking

place. They have participation in that

because their heart, heartedness and their pride.

And yet that is what's happening.

You're like, I keep sharing it. I keep sharing it.

I keep sharing. I know I believe you.

Have you tried to plant a seed in this room?

You can, you can, you can fill the room with seed and it's not

going to take because the surface, because the soil is not

right. It's not the right environment.

What can we do in a situation like that?

You continue to pray, but you don't continue to drop seed here

non-stop, do you? Is that the best use of your

seed? Is that the best use of your

time? So you can pray that the soil

would change, but until the soil changes, you are wasting seed.

So we want to make sure that's not our heart.

We want to make sure we're not the shallow Stony heart that as

soon as persecution comes, I'm a Christian because everybody

around me is a Christian because Christianity is the good and

right thing to do. And Jesus seemed like a really

good guy and he died for my sins.

And that was nice. And, you know, Christianity is

cool, but this is the person who if, if, if pressures persuaded

them enough, if they felt enough heat because of the word of God,

then they would back away from me.

I go, well, I mean, I don't have to be that Christian.

I'm not trying to be like all Christian like I'm like, you

know, I'm just the right amount of Christian.

And then there's the other kind of soil that says I'm distracted

by the cares of life and these other things are worth more to

me. So I don't really bear any

fruit. And all these other things are

distracting and actually more valuable.

So now we keep on going and we get to the pair of the parable

of the mustard seed and the leaven.

So we're in verse 31, he put another parable before them,

saying the Kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed

that a man took and sowed in his field.

It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it is grown, it's

larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree so

that the birds of the air come and make their nests in its

branches. And we'll go to the next one

because they're teaching the same thing.

He told them another parable. The Kingdom of heaven is like

leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flower till

it was all leavened. The mustard seed isn't

technically the smallest seed ever.

Some folks have gotten hung up on this, but it's smaller.

It's this, it's a smaller seed that the audience in that day

would have been using in their gardens and in their fields.

Jesus is not making a botanical point here.

He's using hyperbole to make his point.

OK, so he's just saying he's going to take a mustard seed.

Well, it's not a pumpkin seed, right?

You know, it's, it's a small seed and he's saying, but that

tiny thing, I mean, isn't. I mean, am I the only one who

still is just amazed that seeds create stuff?

Like, I mean, it's like whenever you think about the conception

of babies too, you're like, this is crazy, You know, it's just

crazy. It's God's jurisdiction.

This is just that's his doing. We can plant it, we can water

it, but God makes it grow. You know, that's like it's, it's

miraculous and we're used to it because it's happening all the

time. Oh, plant grass seed.

Oh, grass comes up. That's crazy.

This is insane. This is wild.

This is a miracle. So Jesus is making hyperbole as

he often does. He's going, hey, mustard seed,

it grows up to do mustard seeds. Do mustard plants become trees?

Technically, Well, no, they don't actually become trees, but

they can become big. They can become very, very big.

They can become 10 feet tall. Birds can certainly come and and

nest in them. So again, we're not, we're not

taking Jesus's task because his point is about something small

becoming something great. And then he makes the same point

with yeast. Yeast is a single celled

microorganism. I didn't know that.

I thought yeast was like bigger because you can see it in a

packet. But what you're seeing is a lot

of microorganisms. Did you know that?

OK, well, I learned it this week.

It's a single celled microorganism, a very small

thing, but what does yeast do? It completely changes its

environment, totally changes the environment that that it's

around. The point Jesus is making here

is that the Kingdom of God starts small and it grows to

take over everything and to change the entire environment

around. It starts small, starts modest.

Jesus tells us in John 1224. Truly, truly, I say to you,

unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, then it

just remains alone. But if it dies, it bears much

fruit. Jesus is that seed that he was

talking about when he was referencing the wheat.

Jesus is the seed that dies. He goes into the ground, He went

into the earth and he comes up and multiplies and look what

he's produced. Look at us.

Look at the whole earth. Look at how Christianity

continues to spread because of the goodness of God and and

Christians who are making disciples.

Jesus was buried, Jesus was raised up and Jesus produces.

He reproduces many more of his kind.

The Kingdom of heaven is about multiplying.

The Kingdom of heaven is always about multiplying.

We look at many parables and we see the Lord's priority for

multiplication over and over. We see the Lord delighting in

multiplication. We see the Lord delighting and

starting small. Whoever humbles themselves

before God turns to God can then nest in the branches of the

Kingdom that he produces. The Kingdom of heaven is about

bringing rest. The Kingdom of heaven is about

bringing shade. The Kingdom of heaven is doing

what what a tree would do for many.

We we go under the tree, we get fruit from the tree.

It's the leaves of the tree of life that are going to heal the

nation's. We want things to start big.

That's how experts tell tell you that you're supposed to plant a

church. You're supposed to have a,

you're supposed to have a big launch group for about a year

and you're supposed to have $100,000 and you have a great

facility and you have all these things and boom, now you're

ready to to launch a church. We often start businesses with a

grand opening. And if I'm honest, and maybe you

too, if we could just push a button and skip past the early

growth phase of just about everything we would do.

So if there was a skip this part button, we'd be using that thing

non-stop. I mean, be like, OK, skip this

part. Now, this is what I wanted to

get to. This is what I wanted to get to.

But isn't it strange that everything in life always has

that startup phase? It's almost as though the Lord

wants life to function this way. It's almost as though that was

part of His purpose and part of His design.

Because you and I lack the patience and the wisdom of God.

But the Kingdom of God starts small because God wanted it that

way. This is the same God who is

happy to start life on earth with just one family, two people

in one place and say fill the earth and subdue it.

Lord, you could have been more efficient.

You could have put couples on each continent.

You could have put people and starting places instead of Adam

and Eve. Go figure it out.

Make no mistake, the mustard seed and the yeast like those

things. Jesus is taking over the world

in every way imaginable. He rules the heart of his church

even more as we seek him in prayer.

He rules the hearts of non believers as you make disciples.

And he will rule the kingdoms of this world.

And the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of our

God. But the Kingdom starts small and

everything else starts small. A baby born in the dark that

nobody knew about. Few shepherds, that's a small

start. That's a humble start compared

to how I would have done it, compared to how everyone

expected the Lord to do it. And the Lord knows that a lot of

things are going to keep starting small.

A mighty prayer life. It starts small.

A mighty disciple Maker, do you start by winning the nations or

do you start with one person who you invite to say, hey, look at

the scriptures with me. I'd love to pray for you.

I'd love to encourage you, would love to start walking with you

and discussing the Lord. It starts small, and the

domination of Jesus over the earth started really small.

It looked like he was going backwards with his death, but

that's where Jesus started his victory.

That was where his victory was actually accomplished.

Now the rest of it is just The Walking out, the inevitable

walking out. Everything else is inevitable

because of Jesus's victory on the cross, defeating death,

defeating hell, defeating the grave, defeating the devil.

The sunrise starts small. You ever been waiting for the

sunrise? I remember working night shifts

in Boston and just like eagerly waiting for, you know, it's

just, it's a long night and you're waiting and waiting and

waiting. The hunters.

You've been waiting for the sunrise.

It's a beautiful thing. It's starts small, man.

It's never going to come up. It's freezing out here and

finally, finally, finally breaks until eventually it's noon and

you can't find a shadow. This is the Kingdom of God.

It's going to continue to grow, continue to expand.

We should rejoice when we see foundation being laid.

This is a Kingdom principle, not grieve because the house isn't

finished yet. Why?

Because the Lord has promised to finish it.

And when he finishes it, it will be glorious and it will be a

blessing to all who come into it.

When they're rebuilding the temple.

We see that. We see that the Lord is

encouraging and not to despise small beginnings, although some

were mourning and weeping when they saw the foundation of the

new temple being laid because it had been destroyed.

They mourned and they wept because they realized it was

smaller than the original. Those who live to see the

original still, and they're going, this is what we're

rebuilding. But the Lord was encouraging,

saying don't despise this. I'm still going to work.

I'm still going to do a mighty thing.

It's still going to be glorious. We should remind ourselves that

we won't be able to bring everybody into the Kingdom.

I don't want you to take a confusing take away from these

parables. Why, why, why are we saying the

kingdom's expand, expanding and it can't be stopped and at the

same time, not everybody can come into the Kingdom.

We'll look at all the parables he tells side by side with each

other. He tells us that the weeds are

going to be there with the wheat until the harvest.

So there's going to be the the righteous and the unrighteous

side by side all the way through this thing.

So the parables aren't saying that every single person will be

saved because he's also got these other parables that

clarify that. But he is saying that the salt

and the light of the Kingdom will affect the whole world in

this age. We will affect the whole world

in this age. The yeast of the Christians, the

yeast of the Kingdom of God, which is interesting because

most of the time he uses yeast in a negative connotation, as

Jews often saw yeast. But he's saying we're also like

he said, we're going to continue to swell, we're going to

continue to grow, and we're going to impact this entire age.

And in the next stage, in the next stage, the salt and the

light will completely take over. That's what's coming.

That's why the Kingdom will start small and continue to

grow. So we're going to have great

influence on the earth. We're going to have massive

expansion on the earth in the next stage.

The salt and the light will fully and completely dominate

and take over in every way. All of God's enemies will be

sifted and dealt with as he clarifies here in a few moments

again, so look at verse 34. We'll keep going.

All these things he said to the crowds in parables, indeed, he

said nothing to them without a parable.

This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet.

I will open my mouth in parables.

I will utter what has been hidden since the foundation of

the world. Jesus wanting to bring

revelation. The intention is to to teach and

to help. Analogies are helpful.

That's why we use them. I don't understand.

I don't get it, he said. It's like this and somebody

goes, oh, oh, I get it. That helps.

That's a great comparison. Thank you for that.

So the purposes of the parables, although they are encrypted,

they also bring revelation to the humble and the open hearted.

Why didn't he just spell it out? He had been spelling it out, but

as hearts hardened, part of his judgment against hard hearts was

to leave them hard. They continually persisted in

unbelief. And now he'll go on to speak in

parables to enlighten those who believe and leave those who

won't believe in their blindness.

God is rich in mercy, and still without faith it is impossible

to please Him. And now we come to my favorite

parable of my Lord. Go to verse 44.

Why are we skipping that chunk? Because we hit it last week when

we did the parable of the weeds. And he taught it that way.

Verse 44 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. And then we keep going in verse

45 because it's teaching the same thing again.

The Kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine

pearls who on finding 1 Pearl of great value, went and sold all

that he had and bought it. The the man digging in the

field, he's not looking for treasure, he's just working in

the field. The man searching for pearls, he

is deliberately searching for pearls.

So we got two different kinds of people pointed out here.

One, just by the grace of God, comes across the Kingdom and

rejoices over it. The other one is deliberately

hunger, search, looking, seeking for help, for God, for freedom.

We don't know exactly what his goals are, but he's looking for

it deliberately. So it's interesting at this time

Jesus audience would have understood this.

You would, you could work in someone's field.

And if you found treasure in the field that belonged to the

master, to the man's field that you were working in, why would

you find treasure in the field? Because people buried treasure

very regularly, especially if there was an invading army, you

know, for days. The such and such's are coming

and we're going to have combat. We're going to have problems.

You would take the goods of your household, the most valuable

things, your treasures, whatever that might be to you, and you

would bury it in a secure place. Why?

In case we have to retreat, in case we're on the run.

We don't want to leave things in our home and we don't want to be

carrying them, to be vulnerable as we travel into God knows

where we might have to go. So I'm going to remember that I

buried it in this spot and no one else will know.

And we hope that soon, hope maybe a few weeks when our army

pushes them back or maybe in years we, when we get to revisit

this land, if somehow we retake it, my treasure will still be

secure. And I've come back to it.

You didn't have a bank, you didn't have a safe deposit box,

you didn't have a fireproof safe.

So they buried and hid things in the ground.

So there are treasures all over the world still in the earth

somewhere that people have buried and maybe many will never

be found. But this guy's working in the

field for his master. He's working in the field for

his master. And clunk, that felt different,

that didn't feel like a rock. He uncovers it and he sees what

he's got. Now, there's a rule.

If you lift this treasure out of the field, it now belongs to the

master. So what does he do?

He covers it back up. So we're not supposed to judge

the morality of this parable. That's not the point of it.

The point, Jesus, the point was not look at this guy.

Look what he does. The point is, look what he's

willing to do to get the treasure.

That's the point of the parable. So he covers it back up and he

goes and sells everything he has.

This is a poor man. This isn't the rich man who

already has many pearls and he's going, I'm looking for the

Pearl. This is the poor man who's

working in another man's field. And he goes, covers it back up

he goes, I'm going to sell everything I have.

And it comes to his master. Master, I want to buy that field

that you got over there. Why do you want to buy that

field? I just want to buy it.

I want that field. I'll do anything.

How do you have the money for it?

I sold. I sold some things.

Where's your house? Yeah.

I don't need that anymore. What happened to your shoes?

Yeah. Who needs shoes, man?

It's like I'm not that vain. I'm not trying to make a fashion

statement. He gets rid of everything.

He's got to be able to buy this field.

And he gets rid of everything he's got.

The scripture says. With joy.

With joy. He's not parting ways with all

of his stuff going, oh, what a sacrifice I'm making.

This is the picture of the Kingdom.

There's nothing you and I could sacrifice you, and I can't

sacrifice for the Kingdom. What could we do?

What could you and I lose? And he's going.

I'm selling it all. With joy.

They're going. You sure you want to sell it?

Yeah, I'm sure. What are you going to?

I'm good. I'm good.

This is your car, man. These are your guns.

This is your guitar. This is whatever.

This is your, your, your wardrobe.

This is those, those nice shoes. This is this is your motorcycle.

It's nothing. It's it's no big deal.

I'm happy to sell it. I'm joyfully selling it.

Is it a sacrifice? Of course not.

Jesus saying the Kingdom of heaven is like this.

You find the treasure of the Kingdom of heaven.

You find Jesus. What would you not give up?

Why wouldn't you give up everything?

He's worth it all. He's worthy of it all.

So this man realizes that with great joy, sells all he has and

buys the field from his master, and then he has the treasure.

That parable showed us a man that wasn't searching.

This next one shows us the man who is diligently searching.

The point of both parables is the same, that Jesus and his

Kingdom are worth far more than everything you have.

You and I cannot even sacrifice for the Lord.

What would you sell for Jesus? What would you sell to get Jesus

and what would you, what would you sell Jesus for?

Some people have a price. Judas had 1-30 pieces of silver.

That's what he would sell Jesus for.

What would you sell Jesus for? Whenever 30 pieces of silver,

it's going to take a lot more than that for me.

It's going to take fame. OK, you know your price.

At least, you know, I'll take fame over Jesus.

Yeah, I'll take. I'll take a lot more.

It's going to take a lot more wealth than that.

But yeah. Enough money, enough

relationships, enough influence, enough whatever.

All the carers, all the idolatry of my heart, that's what I'll

give them up for. Not.

Not 30 pieces of silver. I realize he's worth more than

that. But others have sold Jesus out

as well. The shallow soil will give him

up soon enough. But not the men in these two

parables. These are the men like Paul in

Philippians 3, who said, But whatever gain I had, I counted

as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed I count everything is

lost because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my

Lord, for his sake, I've suffered the loss.

But the point is, Paul, have you really suffered loss?

And then he goes on to clarify of all things, I count them as

rubbish. Rubbish.

That's a word for dung. It was actually potentially some

debate and said it was actually a, an unpleasant word.

You wouldn't use it in polite company, Paul, You shouldn't say

it that way. So it could be referencing dung.

Paul's going, but they're like, they're going, Paul, look up

everything you've given. He's going that pile of poop.

Really. They're like, that's, that's

treasure. He's going compared to Christ,

that's not treasure. I haven't given up anything.

Paul, you've been stoned. Paul, you've been beaten with

rods. Paul, you've been flogged.

He's gone. Oh, yeah, I forgot about that.

Oh, yeah, that's crazy. Oh, yeah, I remember that.

Now, Now that you mention it, yeah.

It just doesn't matter, though. It doesn't matter why The

treasure of knowing Christ, I count.

All that stuff is rubbish in order that I may gain Christ and

be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that

comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in

Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.

That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and

share in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death,

that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the

dead. So we don't confuse, we don't

make the parables say things that they're not saying.

The parables aren't saying that you can get rid of something in

order to earn and acquire the Kingdom on your own, and yet

your heart posture is such that I don't care about anything else

except Him, and I'll give up everything else for Him.

These parables teach us that you can have the resurrection of the

dead, eternal life, peace, freedom from fear, the

forgiveness of sins, the security of a father, the love

of the Son, the presence of the Holy Spirit, or you can have

your current life, but you can't have both.

Look at both men in both parables.

Neither of them got to have it all.

Both men in both parables had to give up everything in order to

get the treasure that they were seeking.

He didn't say. The man found the treasure in

the field and then he went and bought the field because he knew

there was a treasure. Oh, that's my master's field.

I'm going to buy it. It cost him something.

What did it cost him? It cost him everything.

The other man is a merchant, a wealthy man.

He's buying and selling pearls all the time.

That's his business. He's got a Pearl business, but

when he finds this one Pearl, he goes, that's the Pearl.

I've never seen anything like it.

There's a lot of pearls in the world, but nothing compares to

this one. I'll go sell everything I've

I've got. He has to separate with in order

to gain. You cannot gain the Kingdom of

God and keep everything else. You cannot have the world and

keep your soul. You have to pick.

I really kind of want to do both right, Which which means you'll

have only yourself and only the consequence.

We'll get to the consequence. The other parables that Jesus

gets to in a moment, both men have to give up everything that

they used to have to get what they did not already have.

And they knew it was a bargain. They both felt like this is a

steal, like it's my secret, this is my secret.

Like, I feel bad about this. I feel bad.

Like you're selling all these pearls.

What are you doing? You're you're liquidating the

whole business. Yeah, but, but you you don't

know. You don't know.

I've got Miss Linda. You've been liquidating the

business, right? Getting rid of all the the

flags, the banners, all the different things, Liquidating

everything. But what if she was doing it all

because she found the one? She's like, what are you doing?

The business? She's like, I've got a plan.

What is it? You don't need to know.

There's one thing that I'm after.

There's one treasure that I'm seeking.

This is the way that we are to look at Jesus.

He is the treasure. He's worth it all.

He's worth it. The persecution that he's

prepared us for and that we've talked about.

What would it matter? I hope that doesn't happen.

Me too. I hope that doesn't come.

But what if it does? So what?

What a steal. What a bargain we got.

What did it cost my life? What did I get?

Jesus's life, I won on that deal.

He sacrificed. I didn't sacrifice, He

sacrificed. This is grace.

This is beautiful, this is incredible.

What's the alternative to the treasure?

The next parable tells us again in verse 47, the parable of the

net. He keeps going again.

The Kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea

and gathered fish of every kind. No fish escapes the net. 22

boats would have gotten to the sea and they would use a

dragnet. The net is connected to both

boats and they're just moving through the sea.

Everything's coming in it. Eels, snakes, all kinds of junk

that they don't want, unclean things that they're not allowed

to eat. They're catching it all.

They're catching it all. They're catching it all.

We bring it to shore. That's a good fish.

That's a good fish. Get that gross thing out of

here. Trash.

That's a good fish. That's a good fish.

Nobody escapes the net. God's net is coming, He told us.

It's the same meaning as the parable that he gave earlier,

the parable of the weeds and the parable of the weeds and the

wheat. The angels are going to come

through. The harvesters are going to come

and harvest everything together. And then God is going to sift

and divide and say righteous and unrighteous.

And we're going to say, I thought so, and so was Jesus

knows everything, and Jesus is going to clarify everything.

The judge is coming, gathers fish of every kind.

Verse 48, when it was full, men drew it ashore and sat down and

sorted the good into containers, but threw away the bad.

So it will be at the end of the age.

That's how we know that the Kingdom is going to fully come

in stages. It's going to keep coming and

keep coming and keep influencing.

Or is there a limit? No, there's no limit.

It's just that there's going to be a sifting moment, and then

the Kingdom fully comes forever. It's going to fully come forever

in that moment. So there's a sifting, there's a

sifting, there's a sifting, and then this clear defining moment,

the judgment, judgment day comes, and now the eternal

Kingdom goes on forever and ever and ever.

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.

Jesus talks about hell more than he talks about heaven.

Why He wants to warn people because it's real, because it's

terrible, because he doesn't want anyone to perish.

Judgment is coming and Jesus is warning and we should do the

same. And now we come to the last

parable that he gave that day, verse 51.

He says, have you understood all these things they said to him?

Yes, and he said to them, Therefore every scribe who has

been trained for the Kingdom of heaven is like a master of a

house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is

old. So scribes are students of the

Word of God. You and I want to be scribes.

We want to be students of of God's Word who understand it,

who recognize it and can instruct others in it.

And now we have rich treasure. When you and I have

understanding and revelation of the Kingdom through the word of

God, you have rich treasure. You're This is why I tell you if

you have revelation on the Scriptures, you are

overqualified now to make disciples.

There's nothing else that needs to happen.

You can open the scriptures of somebody else to say, let me

show you how this is all about Jesus.

Let me show you how this is all about the King and his Kingdom.

Let me show you what this means for us.

You're a scribe who brings out rich treasures out of his house

to show and share with others. Does anybody else do that other

than me? When you get something new at

your house and then you have friends over at least life, I'm

like a little boy with show and tell.

Like if I get a new gun or something and you come to my

house like y'all are in the front door for a couple minutes

maybe and then I'm like bro, bro and Natalie already knows what's

happening, you know, and that little tell like the husband's

wife, the wife's like where they going is like he's probably

going to show him his guns or something like you're correct,

like these are treasures. I'm excited.

I mean, I used to have guns, lost some, of course, in a

boating accident. But these are things that that

we're we're we're valuing and we're saying this is wonderful.

I'm excited about. Am I the only person who does

this? Oh, OK, Kayla.

Kayla shows her treasures too. Good.

Kayla shows her. You'll make me feel lonely there

for a second. All right.

So Kayla and I show people the treasures that we have these

things that we're excited about. But this is what we have when we

have the Kingdom. So the parables, sometimes they

don't work together. Sometimes the point teaches

itself well. And then this one teaches itself

well. Because the man with the

treasure in the field, he's not publicizing it, right?

Like we said, I mean, what was the master thinking when he goes

by in his carriage one day and he seals, he sees that fool out

there dancing in the field and just like this guy, like he used

to work for me and he bought the field and like, I don't know

what the deal is. He's like, hey, good to see you.

This dude's a nut. Like he's so super excited about

this field. Just loves it.

Like just sits by that sits by that one spot all the time.

It's all I've ever seen doing thinks he's got everything he

does. So that parable teaches what

that parables supposed to teach. But this one of Jesus saying

we're supposed to share these things with others, we're

supposed to bring our treasures and go, I got to tell you about

this. I got to show you this.

I'm excited about this. I mean, I was more, I feel like

I was more excited about Elijah Fain's dirt bike than he was

when he got it. Like people come over like you

see Elijah Fain's dirt bike, like you got to come see the

dirt bike. Look at the dirt bike.

Look at this cool dirt bike. Hey, how much more so for the

Kingdom, right? Look at, look at what the Lord

has done for me. Let me tell you about Jesus, who

he is and what he's done. These are the scribes that we're

supposed to be sharing, revealing the treasure that we

have. When you're excited, you'll tell

everyone about the treasure that you found.

You'll show them, you'll share with them.

And finding this treasure will turn you into what others think

is a fool dancing in a field. But we'll close with this.

Jim Elliott was a missionary who lost his life.

He was murdered by the people he was seeking to minister to,

right upon greeting them, unfortunately, they speared him

to death. He and five other men died that

day. These 10 warriors came out.

They went to go preach the gospel for them.

But before he had gone out to meet these people and reach out

to these people, he had written in his journal this famous

quote. He said he is no fool who gives

up what he cannot. Sorry.

He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he

cannot lose. You're not a fool if you give up

something that you can't keep in order to gain the thing that you

could never possibly lose. It's the treasure in the field.

You're a fool for getting rid of all that stuff.

I'm no fool to give up the things that I can't keep anyway

to gain the one that I can never lose.

Believe the word of God, be reassured of the promise.

What am I supposed to do with this one, pastor?

Be thankful again, be refreshed again and go, Jesus, you really

are worth everything. And then be open to what the

Holy Spirit would say. Would he bring instruction

because of that? Jesus, you're worth everything

and the Holy Spirit might have a therefore for you as an

individual today. Do you mean that son?

Do you mean that daughter? Yes, Lord, good.

Therefore will might the Lord prompt you to do now?

What might the Lord lead you in? I can't write that script for

you. You have the Holy Spirit.

But obey. And we're going to take a moment

to pray. We're going to take a moment

right now, not to dismiss, but to seek the Lord God.

You're worth everything, and we ask you to reveal to us if there

is anything else that you would have us give away, if there is

anything else that we need to separate from, nothing that we

would sacrifice, nothing that will cause us to suffer.

God, we keep our eyes on the treasure, not on the thing that

we would give up, the thing that we would sell, the thing that we

would crucify. We're no fool to give up those

things, the things that we can't keep in order to attain the one

that we can never lose. Jesus, we want more of you.

Yes, Lord, I pray you would show each of us right now.

Bring us something clear, bring us something precise.

Just commit to obedience to it right now.

Saints, what is it the Lord is asking of you?

He's saying, can I have that? So I'd give up anything for him.

Well, right. But maybe he's not asking for

for just anything. Maybe he's asking for something

in particular.