Zombies and Buried Treasure

As you may be aware, if you've been with us at all, otherwise, if you're new, welcome.

We've been doing a series since February for the whole year on following Jesus.

And the way we're following Jesus is just in his taking us through the Gospel of Matthew.

We are in a little mini-series now, just a few weeks, on the parables of Jesus.

He is teaching up in the Capernaum area, up on the Sea of Galilee, and it's the stories that Jesus told.

Now, there's a reason he probably is teaching in parables.

Justin's been reminding us that things are getting difficult for Jesus now.

The Roman authorities and the Jewish religious authorities are aware that he's gaining in popularity, and that's a problem for them.

And we already hear they're looking for an excuse to kill him, which is the way in that day they took care of the problems.

So by teaching in parables, it makes what he's doing and his influence a little bit harder to point a finger at.

The last couple weeks, Justin has taken us into the parables of the seed.

And two weeks ago he reminded us that of the four types of soil that those seeds go into, the fourth soil is probably that which we would hope defines all of us and those listening online.

And that's the soil that's the good soil, the soil that actually wants the Word of God to grow within us.

So we always ought to try to be fourth soil people.

But last week he reminded us through Jesus' parables of the mustard seed and the yeast that the Word of God is meant to grow in us.

It isn't something that we get for information.

Rather, the Word of God is that which is for transformation.

That is, we grow up in the Word.

Let me just mention to you that there's been an extensive study done over the last years over what is the impact of the Bible in people who believe.

And what they've discovered is something quite interesting, and it's been proven in study after study after study now.

If you are in the Bible four days a week, you are twice as likely to share your faith with others than those who are not in the Bible four days a week.

You are four times more likely to have memorized scripture passages to help you in life.

And for me, the greatest conclusion of all, you have a biblical worldview.

You are looking at life through the lens of your faith.

If you are not in the Bible four days a week, you look at life just like unbelievers.

Rather staggering, isn't it?

And they have proven that time and time and time again.

We must be devoted to the word, as Justin has been encouraging us, as Jesus encourages us with these parables.

We must keep going to the word.

And there's so many resources online, there's so many Bible studies and commentaries out there.

It's easy to do that.

And it doesn't take three hours a day.

It can be just a few moments and give the chance for the Word of God to speak.

Well, today we look at two more parables.

And we're in Matthew chapter 13, two very short parables.

Matthew 13 · chapter mention

I'd like to read them to you now.

And as soon as I find them, I will.

The print's a little smaller than the Bible I usually use.

Okay, it's it's Math, it's Matthew chapter 13, and they're on the screen.

Matthew 13 · chapter mention

Oh.

It would help if I got to Matthew.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure that a man discovered hidden in a field.

In his excitement, he hid it again and sold everything he owned to get enough money to buy that field.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant on the lookout for choice pearls.

When he discovered a pearl of great value, he sold everything he owned and bought it.

Buried treasure, pearls of great price.

And he says the kingdom of heaven is like that.

So, the obvious place we need to start this morning, zombies.

Zombies.

A good friend of mine, Russ Jones, prepared his Sunday message, and he uh sent me a copy of it, and I was quite intrigued by his use of zombies, the walking dead.

I think it has a lot to say about our message today.

You see, zombies, as Rusk reminded me, they don't seem to have much purpose in life, do they?

They don't seem to work together, they don't have a leader, they don't create anything.

Uh apparently they just want to roam around and make everybody else just like them.

And they eat them.

That's a zombie.

No wonder we they're called the walking dead.

I wonder if it's a parody on our political system today, but I won't go there.

Uh may maybe, well, maybe I should go there.

That got a little response.

Some of you are paying attention to politics, at least on occasion, uh, that we just want to make everybody just like us.

But maybe it's a comment on the human experience without God.

That we're always trying to convince somebody else that we're right, that they should listen to us.

And we want to build an army of people who think just like we do.

And how sad, because all we're committed to in that way, without God, are the values that are part of our fallen nature and the values of the culture, whatever culture we happen to be living in.

And to that kind of mindset and life set that so many people live, if you if you look at any news, you see it on a daily basis.

If you watch any movies or any entertainment, you see it over and over again.

Lives without God.

It's so sad.

And in the midst of it, Jesus gives us these two little parables.

He says, the kingdom of God is like a buried treasure.

Why do we all get captivated by that?

Why do we all get so excited about that?

Uh think about all of the stories we've heard through the years, continue to, about people in the West trying to look up where Jesse James and all the rest of it buried their treasures.

Or going further, there's this amazing story.

You may know the name of Forrest Fenn.

He was an author, and at 75 years old, he took treasures valued at five million dollars, put them in a chest, wrote a poem called The Thrill of the Chase, and buried them somewhere in the Rocky Mountains.

Thousands of people left their pursuits of life to go find the buried treasure, some even to the loss of their lives.

Remarkably, it was found.

After years of searching.

He's now 85 and has confirmed, yes, the treasure was found.

Isn't it interesting the number of treasures that are buried that we get so excited about?

Curse of Oak Island.

I mean, they're in their 11th year, the Laguna brothers.

11 years of TV shows.

Yeah, I can't wait for the next one to come out.

I mean, they haven't found it yet.

And we're convinced they're going to find this treasure that's been there for a couple hundred years.

Some even think it was probably already found and years ago, maybe even helped to fund the American Revolution.

That's one of the theories.

Why do we get so captivated by buried treasure?

Just think of pirate movies.

We can't wait for another pirate movie to come out to see if they find a treasure.

Or Indiana Jones?

Oh my goodness.

Why is it that within us there's this hunger to find something that isn't obvious?

Or maybe this one.

It's time.

Let's show the next slide.

Timing is up.

There it is.

I mean, it's a classic, isn't it?

It's a family classic.

I wanted to show you a clip.

I found out we can't kind of do that anymore.

But the Goonies?

What could be better than a movie for the family than the Goonies?

Children who go off on an adventure and have to face all sorts of crazy stuff, find a treasure, and yeah, I'll give you that, and pay off their parents' mortgage.

Yeah, that works.

Wouldn't you love your kids to go off and find a buried treasure and do that?

Yeah.

That's something we maybe you should pray for.

I don't know.

But then he says it's like somebody going to find a pearl.

I want to introduce, if you haven't met her on YouTube, the pearl girl, this girl's amazing.

She goes into the wilderness, I believe it's in China, and looks for freshwater clams that apparently produce pearls.

For example, look at this.

Woo! Just a couple pearls.

This is where she goes.

Into wilderness.

And oh my.

Woo!

Now, this is amazing.

Look at there, there are all sorts of colors, and she's willing to do this.

She gets into dirty water and scary water and just finds pearls.

And uh, if you think that's just a one-off, she's had a hundred million people view her YouTube broadcasts.

A hundred million people who want to watch a girl walk through the wilderness, pull out clams, and find pearls.

Is there something deep within us that wants to find a treasure?

Wants to figure it out, wants to know what is life really all about.

Where will we find something of real worth?

Because Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like that.

Let me tell you my own story.

Uh, I apparently was close to death at my birth.

My parents were told I probably wouldn't make it.

I did, obviously.

Um, and uh so I was told early on that had a purpose in life, and I had to figure out what it was.

Um apparently I was the obnoxious kid in Sunday school classes that always ask questions that upset the teachers, like, how do you know God is real?

How do you hear his voice?

How do you know what he wants you to do in life?

This went on for years, and apparently I kept being sent back to my mom to sit with her during worship because they didn't want to deal with it.

Uh that continued, trying to figure out what are we here for?

Why are we, other than I guess, elephants, the only animals on the planet that can contemplate our own death?

How can we do that?

Why do we have imagination?

Why do we dream?

Why what's this all about?

Is it just a silly game?

And I began to collect the the opinions of the culture around me.

I began to think that I was all that important, that it must be my grades or my sports.

And at five foot eight, there's not a lot of things I do well in sports, I'm just saying.

Um learned I couldn't play basketball in eighth grade, couldn't reach that hoop way up in the stars.

Couldn't do that.

Um but I had I I began thinking that, well, I I guess it's about me.

I have to get ahead, I have to prove I'm the best.

And this went on for years.

I read the Bible, the New Testament, at least, at age 19.

I read it all the way through on one of my first cruises with the Navy, and went, well, it's it's clearly truth isn't here.

Um, it talked about people who were filled with joy, who actually loved each other, who cared for widows and orphans.

And I went, Well, I've been in church my whole life, it's not there.

And yet there was something that kept drawing me back.

And even there at the Naval Academy, uh I was one who had the little Bible next to my bed, so I could look at it at night.

There was something about this.

Something about this.

Married my high school sweetheart Jill.

We head off to flight training.

I still think it's all about me.

Go offline carrier-based aircraft, I think it's all about me.

Pursuing the astronaut program, thinking it's all about me.

I've got to get ahead, I've got to make a name for myself.

All the lies of the American culture.

And it was all empty.

Every treasure that I sought to find and I got there was empty.

And I'm going, is this all there is?

Anyone know that story?

For everything you're going for, you go, is this all there is?

What did I learn?

Jesus is right.

The only treasure worth pursuing is Jesus.

The only treasure worth pursuing is Jesus.

He said the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure that you sell everything to get.

Why is it so buried?

Because it's buried with all the stuff we have to deal with in life.

Think about it.

It's buried by our anxieties, it's buried by our fears, it's buried by our efforts to try to figure something out that we may never figure out.

It's buried by our feelings because we don't feel like going to church.

We don't feel like reading the Bible.

We don't feel like being nice.

We don't feel like caring for other people.

See, we got to go deeper than our processing.

We got to go deeper than our heart and dig through all the stuff that gets in the way.

I mean, my heart breaks to see my grandchildren being raised in this culture.

What are they here?

They have to find the perfect man.

They better start dating and find out who it is because obviously some other person will meet your needs.

Fortunately, they know better.

Isn't it crazy in movies?

It seems like it's either about wealth never having enough.

So you have to keep working harder to get more money, another job, another advancement, get more money, or it's about sex for guys not getting enough, for women stop, you know, whatever.

Or it's about success and status.

Why do we keep believing that the shouting culture that we live in has values that we want to embrace?

No, we have to dig beyond that, dig through that, dig through all the stuff that gets in the way, all the pains, all the brokenness, all the struggle, yeah, sure, all the sin, others and ours, all the stuff that's wrong with this world, yeah, gotta dig through all of that and find the treasure that's worth everything.

Do you remember way back in Matthew chapter 10?

Matthew 10 · chapter mention

We were reminded that when Jesus sent his disciples, he told them go and tell them the kingdom of heaven is near.

It's really near.

Because Jesus was just a few miles away.

The treasure is Jesus.

I'm significantly older than most of you in this room.

I promise you.

When you find that treasure, nothing else matters.

Everything else gets transformed.

Everything else gets transformed.

Don't think you're gonna find it with anything else.

You were created by God.

You were redeemed by the Father's Son, Jesus, who came to earth and live an innocent life to die for us so we could be forgiven and set free.

We've been singing about freedom all morning.

Set free from all the stuff of the world so we can get to the treasure of more value than anything else.

And we might say, Oh Jesus, thank you, you found me.

Because even as you discover Jesus, you found his love was first.

And what he did on the cross was for me, and it was for you.

The treasure is Jesus.

That's the pearl of great price.

That's the treasure that, if we're not careful, gets buried by all the things we think we have to accomplish in this life.

And we we forget that until we find out what God wants of us in this world, we might just be living a lie.

Our future was not in the Navy, it was not in the space program, it was not in our investment portfolio.

Our future, because our life was found in Jesus.

The treasure is Jesus, and he even tells us that if we read the word.

If anyone would come to me, he says, streams of living water would flow out.

John even tells us he meant the Holy Spirit.

See, what's remarkable is he says, I am the Good Shepherd, I am the resurrection and the life, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

I am the vine, you are but the branches.

So, what's significant about this treasure?

Not only do we finally find our meaning and our purpose and our life and our freedom and our hope and love and joy, but this treasure goes inside.

The treasure goes inside.

As I was raised, I was always driving my mom uh because I'm I probably still am quite obnoxious, but I certainly was as a kid.

And she'd she'd always say something like, Well, nobody can ever take that away from you.

And I'd say, nobody wants to.

Then as I got older and began realizing that there's things that nobody can take away from you.

It's the reality of God on the inside.

This treasure goes inside each of us and grows and grows the more we yield to Him.

So we can have the new heart, we can have the new mind.

We can begin looking at life biblically and saying, that's wrong, that's wrong, but this is the path I must go in.

Do you get it?

It's the very breath of God.

Remember after he conquered death, he went to the disciples afraid in the upper room, and I've mentioned this to you before.

He breathed them and said, Receive the Holy Spirit.

That's still Easter night.

Oh, they haven't been anointed in ministry.

That's Pentecost, that's going to come 50 days later.

But he conquers death.

And he says, Okay, now, let me live inside of you.

What did he teach them in the upper room just before he went to the cross?

He told them, I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate, another counselor, another encourager, who will never leave you.

He is the Holy Spirit who leads you into all truth.

The world cannot receive him because it isn't looking for him and doesn't recognize him.

But you know him because he lives with you now and later will be in you.

No, I will not abandon you as orphans.

I will come to you.

Soon the world will no longer see me, but you will see me.

Since I live, you also will live.

When I am raised to life again, you will know that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.

If you're not certain of that reality, that you've been set apart by God, it's a good time to pray.

To take the time and say, Lord, come in.

In my journey, I finally came to realize nothing was working.

Nothing was working until I just surrendered to the king.

Said, Lord, I don't even know who you are.

I need you in my life.

I find it interesting what Paul writes about this mystery to the Corinthians.

In his second letter, he wrote this You see, we don't go around preaching about ourselves.

We preach that Jesus Christ is Lord, and we ourselves are your servants for Jesus' sake.

For God, who said, Let there be light in the darkness, has made this light shine in our hearts, so we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ.

We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure.

This makes it clear that our great power is from God.

It's not from ourselves.

This is what he wrote to the Ephesians.

Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him.

Your roots will grow down into God's love and keep you strong.

Don't you want to be strong in facing all the craziness of this world?

The treasure Jesus wants to make you strong.

As Paul writes to the Colossians, he says this.

This is the secret.

And see, that's what Jesus isn't doing, right?

It's the secrets of the kingdom.

This is the secret, Paul writes.

Christ lives in you.

It's a great mystery.

We can't prove it except by the way we live our lives.

But there's many in this room who know it's real, don't we?

Christ alive in us, the greatest of all treasures.

That's why we can do go crazy parts of the world.

We can do amazing things, and we don't have to even be afraid of death or any of the other challenges of life.

They're just challenges.

They're just challenges.

God's using things to grow us up so we become more mature in Him.

But there's something else about this amazing treasure.

It's a treasure that we share.

It's not a treasure that we need to hoard, is it?

It's not a treasure that says, oh, I've got it now.

Look at me.

It's not that at all.

It's the treasure that is of the greatest price of anything, that's worth everything in our life to obtain it.

As I heard someone say once, think about the transaction.

You give your life to the Lord, but he gives you his life back.

You'll always be in debt.

The treasure is just too great.

And then the treasure comes inside, so no one can take it away from us.

And God can begin doing the work of giving us new perspectives on life.

That we begin caring for people that otherwise we didn't even notice before.

That we begin changing the way we spend our finances because we care about the world and want to help things to grow.

And yes, this treasure is one that we just get to share.

We just get to give away.

And what's wonderful is the more we give away, the more there seems to be.

It's the greatest of all mysteries.

You can never give away all the treasure because every time you give it away, you get more back.

Think about our worship team.

In the next two weeks, the giving away all that time, all that effort, all that creativity, so we can grow closer to Jesus.

And hopefully we won't be obnoxious and want to scream out so we'll be recorded in our scream.

Hopefully, we'll be participating in the movement of the Spirit as the music goes forth for the praise of God, as they give away Jesus.

But think about our Guatemala ministries, all those hundreds of kids, all the trips that this church has taken to Guatemala just to give away Jesus.

Isn't it amazing?

I mean it is.

It is amazing.

There's a few of us that are engaged in India.

Earlier this morning, we've fed 400 children at one of our VBS programs, fed them with the gospel, fed them with food, gave them gifts.

And our pastor Andrew there told me this morning, he said, he calls me father.

Father, I'm just very tired.

And we have VBSs all through the month.

I think we're up to six.

Hundreds of children on the other side of the planet.

Just we're trying to love Jesus.

Think about the Sirens Project.

There's some crazy guys in this church, led by Warren and company.

When someone has a disaster, they go with all this big equipment and risk their lives to help people to get back in their homes.

And they just share the love of Jesus that way.

I've been on one of their trips.

I'll never forget it.

It's amazing.

Think about all the classes that are offered here.

And all the new classes that are being planned even now.

They're just classes to give away the love of Jesus.

The Canvas project.

Show a little girl and her family the love of Jesus.

The food that's given away.

The teens just getting back from a week being away.

14 adults took off time from work and their family life to go off with 70 teenagers so they could experience Jesus.

Who does that?

Christians do that.

You see, there's something about the mystery that when you finally find the treasure and you allow the Lord to come in, all you want to do is give them away.

You just want others to know.

Stop wasting your time on treasures that won't last.

Find the treasure that Jesus Himself says is Himself.

Think about Sheila and the team she coordinates and all the care she provides to so many of us.

I won't ask how many have received help from Sheila and team, but they give away Jesus all the time.

I mean, you see it everywhere.

From the coffee team that comes in and prepares just so we can have free coffee.

To the welcome people who are out there running shuttles and welcoming us at the door.

And the tech team.

Hey, let me let me tell you a little secret.

Do you know what the tech team does after they get all this stuff?

The screens, the sound, the projection, the cameras, they get that all together.

Do you know what they do?

They gather in the back and share communion together and pray together.

That they would be instruments.

Praising Jesus.

You see, we're surrounded by people who know this treasure.

The word of God is real.

Jesus says, this is the treasure.

And it's worth everything to find it in your life, no matter what age you are.

And if you've already found that treasure, embrace it again and again and again.

Keep reading the word, keep growing in the word.

Keep seeing how God then wants to bless you to reach more and more and more and more people.

He'll put that treasure within, growing even more, so you can keep giving it away.

And we can be part of a community and part of a county filled with churches, filled with people who just want to give away Jesus.

Wow.

Why do we waste time on anything else?

Music team, you want to come back up now?

We're got some exciting things coming along.

But I need to close with zombies.

There's a lot of folks who don't know the truth, the truth that many of you have been nodding along all the time I've been up here.

There's a lot of people who are just struggling along.

The walking dead, because they don't know life is found in Jesus.

We really need to share.

We really need to live.

And we really need to encourage others to live and let that light grow brighter and brighter.

That light, Christ in you, the hope of glory.

And then we'll fulfill another verse in Scripture.

The promise that we will receive more than we could ask or imagine.

Can you imagine that?

As much as we can dream, as much as we can imagine, as much as we can ask God for, he says, Oh, I've got more for you than that.

I've got more for you.

But you've got to let me in.

You've got to grow in me, and you've got to trust me, says the Lord.

And when we do, ah, amazing.

So you ready to let the treasure go in even more?

Because it's time for communion.

If you haven't got one of these little cups, you're welcome to go back to the back to the baskets and get one.

It's a little bit of juice and a little bit of bread.

And it's a great treasure.

It is a great treasure.

This is not a religious act.

This is a deep and solemn moment.

Jesus said, This is my body.

This is my blood.

Do this in remembrance of me.

So I don't know how that's how he does that.

This is his body, this is his blood, but he says so.

Can't prove it.

But I know that people facing battle and wars.

I know the sick and the suffering and the dying.

They all want me to bring this.

All around the world, people want this treasure.

Don't ever take it for granted.

Your king says, do this in remembrance of me.

Let the treasure come in.

Then share that treasure.

Father, we thank you for the gift of your life for us.

We ask your blessing upon this bread that indeed for us it would go inside, that we would grow in you.

In Jesus' name.

Let's eat the bread.

Now the juice.

You said this is your blood, and that you desire to cleanse us and make us whole and complete.

So we ask your blessing upon this cup now that it would be for us new life once again.

In Jesus' name.