Matt. 13:44-46
HOW MUCH IS GOD WORTH?
(The Parables of the Pearl and the Treasure)
These two parables are like twins. They are very similar but they also have marks of individuality. They both teach the truth that the supreme blessing, the priceless discovery in life, is the discovery of God. To be in His Kingdom, to be a member of his family, to receive Him and His love and power is the true treasure of living.
They also teach that God is not only VALUABLE but ACCESSIBLE. We can all have Him, from the poorest dirt farmer to the wealthiest pearl merchant. We may find Him in different ways but we have Him when we value Him above all else. Think first of ...
I. THE VALUE OF DISCOVERING GOD.
The two pictures are simple but powerful. In Palestine, when armies marched across the land, people saved their possessions by burying them. The Rabbis had a saying, “There is only one safe repository for money - the earth.”
A poor dirt farmer is plowing somebody else’s field. He does it to feed himself and his family. He knows every clod in that old patch and probably hates each one. When his plow goes deep and hits something hard he curses the rock. But when he digs it out it is not a rock but a chest - a chest filled with more money than he has ever seen. He buries it and sells everything he owns so he can buy the field.
The second man is a wealthy pearl merchant. The pearl in that day was like our diamond, a rare treasure. One day he came across the most beautiful, valuable pearl he had ever seen. He too sold all he had so he could buy it.
The pearl and the treasure represent, of course, the Kingdom of God, all those blessings and benefits that are ours in being rightly related to Christ. We often think of religion as something that takes all the joy out of life but, instead, it is like finding buried treasure, like finding a perfect jewel.
When God opens our eyes we get our priorities right. We see that which is truly valuable. Passengers on a cruise ship give little thought to the life jackets under their bed. They are crude and ugly and rough and uncomfortable. But let the ship start to go down and the jackets are prized above all items. To many, Christianity, like those jackets, is something to fall back on in life’s emergencies, but the rest of the time it is a hindrance to full and free living.
To others, however, Christianity is as valuable, every day and in every way, as a life jacket is to a drowning man. Jesus is the Bread of Life. He is the Water of Life. Just as our bodies starve without bread and water, so our higher nature starves without Him who satisfies the hungers and thirsts of our souls. Jesus is the most valuable thing in life, the one thing we could not do without. Think second of ...
II. THE VARIETY IN DISCOVERING GOD.
These parables agree in teaching the value of finding God but they separate in the matter of HOW we find God. They point out the “variety of religious experience” William James wrote about. The farmer stumbled upon God by accident but the merchant found Him after diligent searching. One man set out to walk the hard, boring field of life’s daily duty and found God. Another set out to find God and found Him. Christians, in the Bible, and in our day, are as multi-colored as life itself. There is room in the kingdom for impetuous Peter who bravely believed and for the self-tormenting skeptic, Thomas, who barely believed. Our parables point out those who STUMBLE upon Christ and those who find him by SEARCHING.
Look first at the man who stumbled upon God. God was found in an unlikely place. In one way this is true of all who find Him because the unlikely place we all find God is IN THE LORD. God has not only revealed Himself but hidden Himself in a very common field - Jesus. The Bible-teaching Pharisees looked at Him and saw the devil. His own family looked at Him and saw one insane. Even John the Baptist said, “Are you the One or should we look for another?”
God came into this world through the back door. He was born a poor child in a little hole-in-the-corner country. He did not march through His world with twelve legions of angels. He healed the sick, blessed little children, forgave the sinful and died like the rest of us. This is exactly why many miss Him. But praise God, it is also why many find Him. He is not some far-removed Messianic General we salute from afar. He is our brother, our friend, our fellow-sufferer, as well as our God.
We stumble upon God also in the unlikely field of THE CHURCH. Paul said of the church’s preaching of the gospel, “We hold this treasure in earthen vessels” (2 Cor. 4:7). Or, “We...have this treasure in clay pots.” The “clay” of the church is heartbreakingly evident to those on the inside and the outside. The last place most of us expect to be turned on again to life is in the monotonous, boring, predictable services of the average church.
I guess we are all tempted to give up on the church at times, or at least to prop it up with worldly excitements. We are writing its obituary when suddenly the miracle happens. A soul finds God in the routine and ritual of the church. A lady came out the door and told Alexander Whyte, “I did not care much for your sermon today.” Like any preacher, that kind of remark devastated him. We can get as discouraged over the preaching of our sermons as you do over hearing them.
A. J. Gossip once said, “Forty years of preaching often look like forty years of beating the air.” Whyte must have felt that way, until, in the middle of the week, he received a letter. A young man, the son of that woman, wrote, “Dr. Whyte, your sermon last Sunday led me to Christ.” He found the treasure! Charles Spurgeon couldn’t make it to the church because of the snow. He stopped in a little Methodist Chapel. The pastor did not show up. A layman preacher, spoke directly to Spurgeon, and he, the greatest preacher since Paul, found Christ then and there. In a poorly attended lay led service, he found the treasure!
Sir Wilfred Grenfell, as a young medical student, was neither for nor against Christianity. Out of curiosity he went to a tent meeting led by D. L. Moody. A man called on to pray, prayed on and on and on, seeking to impress the crowd. Grenfell was irritated and was about to slip out when Moody, in the middle of the boring prayer, said, “Let’s sing a hymn while our brother finishes his prayer.” Grenfell said, “His practicability interested me and I stayed the service out.” When eventually he left, it was with a determination to accept Christ or abandon Him. He accepted Christ later and became a champion of the kingdom. He stumbled on Christ in church. He found the treasure.
Looking at this poor, dirt farmer, we see in his hard life, how many stumble upon God IN DISCOURAGEMENT AND PAIN. Life must have been hard for this man. He had mouths to feed and somebody else’s field to plow. He trudged wearily through life.
He is here today. We wander off on the wrong trails and life leaves us hungry for it is largely a hard and disappointing experience. Trust turns to cynicism. Hope turns to dismay. We give up dreams and goals we stern facts destroy youthful ideals. We keep on trudging and keep on plowing and believe tomorrow will be just as empty as yesterday and today.
Then it happens. Though we have forgotten God, He has not forgotten us. God, says Charles Allen, keeps putting unrest and dissatisfaction into our hearts until suddenly we see Him. We see what life is all about and what things in life really matter. We find a God who forgives our sins; who takes the broken pieces of our life and puts them back together; and who gives purpose and meaning to life. In dissatisfaction with life we find Him who satisfies.
Above a water fountain in a church I saw the words of scripture, “Whoever drinks from this well, will thirst again.” How true! Hedonism, the lust for pleasure, the American Dream, is a big lie! The world’s hog troughs (Lk. 15) cannot meet the needs of man. That is why millionaire athletes become drug addicts. Money and fame cannot buy what they really want. In the pain and discouragement of this holy discontent, countless people have turned to the Lord.
Look next at the man who searched for God. Now no person searches for God until God touches his heart and creates a hunger (Rom. 3:11). But God often allows such men, as this merchant, to search for years, before they find Him. Paul searched Judaism from top to bottom before he found Christ on the Damascus Road. Luther searched Catholicism from top to bottom before he found Christ in the doctrine of faith. Justin Martyr went from philosophy to philosophy until he found Christ as the truth that set him free.
Some men cannot “simply believe.” They must walk through their doubts and fears and questions. They must test and evaluate and judge. They must fight their way to Christ. “My Hosannas,” said Dostoevsky, “have all come to me through the whirlwind of doubt.”
III. THE VENTURE IN DISCOVERING GOD
The parables come together again and teach us the venture in discovering God. Both men sold all they had and bought what they found. Several truths emerge.
The first is that CHRISTIANITY COSTS US SOMETHING. Thielicke says, “Everything in the world must be paid for - even God.” He is right. Salvation is a gift but we must empty our hands to receive it. To receive goodness we must give up evil. To receive God we must give up Satan. To receive friendship with Jesus we must give up friendship with the world that killed Him.
The second truth is that THE VALUE OF WHAT WE RECEIVE FAR OUTWEIGHS THE COST. Paul surrendered much from his Jewish world to accept Christ but years later he wrote, “I consider them (the things he gave up) rubbish that I may gain Christ” (Phil. 3:8-9). Catherine Marsh, seeking to win a brilliant young man to Christ heard him say, “You mean you want me to give up everything?” “No,” she answered, “I mean I want you to accept everything in Christ.”
The final truth is that SO FEW ARE WILLING TO PAY THE PRICE. Because people don’t really believe in the value they are not willing to empty their hands and hearts of the love of the world. Thousands settle for a little “bit” of God. A “bit” of religion to spice up a worldly life. But God will not be such a minor addition. He is not an ornament to delight us in dreary moments. He demands to be all or nothing.
And this dabbling in God is the secret of much of our misery. Down in our heart of hearts we know He is what we need and really want. But we also love other things we refuse to leave. And so we wind up with nothing. We keep things that don’t make us happy and we refuse the very thing that would. We are like the rich young ruler, empty with life’s overflow, but refusing to pay the price.
One of God’s aged saints gave a thrilling testimony in church. It was a story of faith and love and commitment and unshakeable joy. When he sat down a young man seated behind him whispered to a friend, “I’d give the world to be close to God like him.” The old pilgrim heard it, turned around and said, “That’s just what it cost me, son, the world.”
Most of us want this treasure but few of us want it bad enough to give up what it takes to get it. This is true of lost men who fail to receive salvation and it is true of Christians who fail to receive the close walk with God that is our birthright. Augustine once prayed, “Make me good ... but not too good.” There were some sins he was not willing to leave. Years later when he entered the life of deep fellowship he wrote, “What I feared to be parted from was now a joy to surrender.” He bought the treasure. The pearl was his.
