Read Matthew 13.44-46. Pray.
Introduction
Matthew again pairs two parables to press on us all the more forcefully one point. Last week we heard two parables of hidden and growing power. The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, small and insignificant, but hidden in the dirt it grows to become the largest of cultivated plants. The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, hidden in a bushel of flour, seemingly lost and useless; but with time, leavening the whole. The work of God, though not explosive like dynamite, grows insistently and powerfully in the soul of his people. True grace, begun by the “insignificant” hearing of the gospel, burrs into the heart to transform the whole life of the true Christian.
Again in Matthew 13, two parables: a treasure and pearl. Both speak of searching and finding, and both reveal the same general point. But unlike the earlier parables, even though the pearl and treasure are unseen, the main point is not hidden, growing power. These parables focus on the surpassing worth of the kingdom. The treasure is hidden, to be sure, but the point is the treasure. The pearl was found, yes; but the story emphasizes its great value. Together these demand that we ask, “What do I value above all else? What is it I simply must have? What do I love so much that I would give up all to have it?”
The first man finds a treasure in a field. Eager to possess it, he sells all he has to buy the field and make it his own.
Parable convey cosmic truths with concrete stories; they are not intended to be interpreted as literal events. So we do not want to ruin the story by dissecting every detail. At the same time, we may be misled about what this parable means if we picture a man walking around the neighborhood with a metal detector in his hands and headphones over his ears, until he finds a hidden treasure in someone’s yard. Then he buys their house and cashes in on the reward. Maybe a few details about life in those days will make more sense of this story.
First, there were no real banks in these days. Money, when it was had, was hidden, often buried on property which you may or may not own. Especially if you heard of an invading army, you would likely bury your valuables in a field. Additionally, these were times when whole villages could be slaughtered in war or wiped out by disease. So though we should not think of it as common, it was not unheard of to find a treasure that someone had hidden decades earlier then died without digging up. When Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field,” people nodded their heads. They knew about that; they could relate.
And when the man sees what he has, he knows it worth, and though impoverished to get it, he does so with joy. Joy because what he will obtain is of such great value.
In contrast to this poor man who is surprised to find a treasure, the second man has some wealth; he buys and sells pearls. Like a baseball card collector who rises early every Saturday morning to visit the yard sales and dig through dusty boxes rescued from attics. Each day he pushes aside the piles of relatively worthless and mass produced cards until one day he discovers a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle. And when he found it, he drained his savings to purchase the shoebox for $10,000. The cost was high, for the seller knew the cards were valuable, but he did not appraise the ’52 Mantle at its selling price of nearly $300,000.
Let’s notice, please, one relatively minor principle from these parables, then we will focus on the main point.
First, notice that God hides spiritual treasures in unexpected places. The reward of the kingdom of God is not out and obvious for everyone to see; it hides under the most ordinary of people and messages.
The world looks for value on the surface – what is external and seen. Beauty, articulate speech, polished and personable presentations – these land the great job, make for success in politics, win friends and influence people.
It makes almost laughable the description Paul gives of the kind of people God brings into his kingdom: “not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are” (1Corinthians 1.26-28).
Scene in Screwtape Letters where the enemy tells the junior tempter that he can dissuade his pupil from becoming a Christian by showing him people at church with rumbled and cheap clothing and bad breath. Lewis uses that idea to rebuke us for seeing only the outward and obvious things in people. Only a fool would imagine that the truthfulness of a religion could be judged by the dress and hygiene of the faithful, but the world looks on the outward appearance, and fails to see the treasure hidden in the heart.
The pearl of great value is also hidden in an ordinary place. The man searched for pearls, so finding one is no surprise. People saw those pearls every day. But they had become so used to them that they did not recognize one of extreme value.
So it is with the gospel. We can hear the message of Jesus at virtually every minute of every day in our country. Radio stations broadcast earnest preachers and television stations constantly air religious channels. Additionally, the internet and books and church ministries offer the gospel call at every hour of every day. Yet, many who hear, do not hear; and many who see, do not see. The story of grace seems too common; the message too simple; the news too good to be true. And many pass by, searching for something more, something difficult, something demanding of me.
Yet it is there, all along. Hidden under some dirt or surrounded by other trinkets, few see it. God hides spiritual treasures in unexpected places.
With that in mind, let’s think about the main point: a Christian realizes that nothing he or she desires compares to the surpassing worth of the kingdom.
There is a book entitled, Give Up Your Small Ambitions. I know nothing about it, other than the title fits here. Most people have ambitions that are so small. What do people really hope to have in their lives? A job that makes enough money for a dinner out occasionally and a vacation once a year? A home to watch a few TV shows and enjoy time with the family? Children who stay out of trouble and marry and get good jobs. None of those are bad. But aren’t they small?
Sin shrinks my soul until I hope for too little. Then I pass by the field, never suspecting a treasure there. We walk through the market, never imagining one of the pearls of great value. People rarely look intently, so we satisfy our souls with small ambitions.
As a result, when we have problems, we usually see ourselves as sufferers needing a solution, not sinners needing salvation. People come to God when they have a hard test this week, or a sick relative they want healed, or a new job they really want, or a marriage problem that hurts. They are suffering – from fear of failing the test, from care for a hurting friend, from a bad job or a troubled relationship. We need a solution: a quick and dirty miracle. Like a genie in a lamp, we rub with a quick prayer or a trip to the confessional or church, and expect God to pop out an answer.
And when he does not, we doubt.
What if such solutions risked pushing us away from a far greater reward? What if we are not, fundamentally and essentially, sufferers, but sinners? What if we need, not a solution to a problem, but a whole life salvation? What if God wants us to give up our small ambitions and admissions to give us a pearl of great value?
John Calvin: “The excellence of the heavenly life is not perceived, indeed, by the sense of the flesh; and so we do not esteem it according to its real worth, unless we are prepared to deny, on account of it, all that glitters in our eyes.”
With those thoughts, I would suggest three applications: First, Christianity requires a change in essence, not in degree. Second, Christianity demands that we give up all other valuables. Third, Christianity rewards with unimaginable splendor. Let’s look at each briefly.
First, Christianity requires a change in essence, not in degree. To be a Christian is to enter a new reality, to join a new kingdom. There is no middle ground, no remaining worldly while we have some religious interests.
These are parable of the kingdom, which has a king, and that King is not me. In essence, these parables are all about trading self-sovereignty for God-sovereignty. Either God is my master, or I am. Choose this day whom you will serve. No one can serve two masters; either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. Who is your king?
This is where the sharpness of the gospel cuts hard against modern people. Most Americans feel they are balanced and enlightened, suave and intellectual. They of course accept the Bible, along with other great spiritual writings. But press them on certain texts, and they admit that they do not believe or practice those.
The Wall Street Journal had an article last week about the exhibit coming this fall to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. They will display an 86 page Bible, created by Thomas Jefferson. In this severely abridged version, Jefferson says that he sought to excise passages “of vulgar ignorance, of things impossible, or superstitions, fanaticisms, and fabrications.” Stories of angels, wise men, and the resurrection did not survive Jefferson’s scissors.
Few people today are so crass in their criticism of the Scriptures; they simply ignore what they dislike. But note this: after Jefferson completed his editing of the Bible, he wrote to a friend that his version, “It is a document in proof that I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus.” Modern people are just like Jefferson; they cut what they dislike and use the rest to prove their faith.
But note well who is king in this system. It is not the God who reveals himself in the Bible, but those who read with such discernment. Pastor Tim Keller said, “If there are not parts of the Bible that chafe you, then you are not reading it.”
Christianity requires a change in essence, not in degree. Entering the kingdom of God is not adding to your life some self-help techniques; it is relinquishing self. It is not choosing a few new truths to accept; it is finding Truth which makes everything else you thought a lie. It is not trying harder to follow the king; it is the King’s rescue of your life from prison. Christianity requires a change in essence, not degree.
Second, Christianity demands that we give up all other valuables.
The parables are different: one man is poor, the other well-off. One is surprised by the discovery, the other was searching when he found it. In one case the seller knows nothing of the treasure, in the other he apparently does. But in both accounts the hero sells all else for the prize. Those who would obtain the kingdom must give up all other treasures.
Now be careful here, lest we mistakenly assume that Jesus describes what we must do to earn the kingdom. Many a monk and spiritual zealot thinks that heaven can be purchased by selling all that one owns. However, it is not bought, but experienced by giving up everything else.
When we walk into a dark room we flip on the light. The switch is how we receive light, not generate it. The switch transfers power to the bulbs, it does not create power.
So too with the kingdom. We do not earn heaven by selling all else, but receive the reward when we do so. Jesus is not asking what you are willing to lose to get the kingdom; he asks how we value what we gain. Do we treasure Christ? Those who believe realize that selling all is not a loss, but gain. The kingdom comes with great reward. There is joy in giving up all because it is all worthless, and in letting go we receive.
Many religious people remain far from Jesus for this precise reason. He is not of infinite worth so they hold tightly to their treasures. True faith gives up all other “valuables.”
Third, Christianity rewards with unimaginable splendor.
Neither the man who sold all for the field, nor the one who sold everything for the pearl felt that he lost. Great was their reward! This is why you cannot buy your way into the Kingdom – the King rewards his subjects with more than they could ever give up.
Matthew 19.29: Everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life.
Mark 8.35: Whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.
Many either cannot or refuse to see the treasure which is Christ, so they naturally pass by the field or never search for this rare pearl. This is what it means to believe. Not to pray a prayer or to claim to be a Christian or to attend church. But to treasure Christ above all else. Do you believe that Jesus is the reward? Then you will sell all else to have him.
Conclusion
Earlier I said that most people see themselves as sufferers needing God for a solution. The Bible says we are sinners needing God for salvation. To get to the Biblical answer, we must give up both our small admissions and our small ambitions.
First, our small admissions. For many, admitting that I need help from God sounds like a lot. But it is small compared to the truth. We are spiritually dead, lost and running from God. We do not need help; we need new life. We need rescue, salvation, a new way of thinking and feeling. We need to be re-created, renewed, restored to a life consistent with our creation. Conversion to Christianity begins with admitting how bad things are. The gospel says that we are worse than we would ever have imagined apart from the grace of God.
Second, we must also give up our small ambitions. The gospel does not offer a little help, but a whole new life.
C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity: “Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is he up to? The explanation is that he is building quite a different house from the one you thought of – throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”
C. S. Lewis writes (The Weight of Glory): “It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship….”
Would we not let go of our trivial little pleasures, if we knew that the King would make us into gods and goddesses? This is what the kingdom is like. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
