Getting the Kingdom, 3: The Hidden Treasure & The Pearl of Great Price: "Truly Priceless" Matthew 13:44-46

- We live in a culture that is business focused and media driven.

- We learn more from advertising than we do from our philosophers, theologians, and teachers.

- Let me show you what I mean – play YouTube Master Card ads:

        (1)MacGyver: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYryLFfOa8k

        (2)Penelope Fortier: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kOE7jN4-Ws

        (3)/Changes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oes8jcO8qfU         

        (4)Baseball commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71KAO_bmc2o

        (5)Lost dog all 3 together: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mSSaCJWliI

        (6)"TP... bad idea”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_G9WRAhvE4

- These MasterCard ads are very tempting and convincing because they play on our emotions and prey on our hearts.

- While they teach us that money can be used to buy useful everyday items, these ads also teach us that money can be used to buy happiness, comfort, and deeper relationships.

- They teach us that though we are far from home or where we long to be, we can simply just spend our way there or buy our salvation back home to those whom we love.

- In the last ad, MasterCard finally admits that we can spend our way into trouble.

- But they never admit the trouble we get ourselves into through overspending, buying what we don't really need and leaving ourselves deep in credit card debt.

- MasterCard is selling a lie by telling us that we can buy our way into priceless experiences and the truly satisfying joys of life.

- The happiness that money buys is only momentary. It fades away.  It is not as priceless as MasterCard would have us believe.

- In fact, when we're using borrowed money, it's worse because we build up debt we can't pay, becoming slaves to it.

- What I want us to do this morning is take a look at the parables of The Hidden Treasure and The Pearl of Great Price.

- This pair of stories helps us to understand what Jesus has to say about the one thing he sees as truly priceless.

- Matthew 13:44-46

- ⁴⁴ “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.
⁴⁵ “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. ⁴⁶ When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.

- Can you hear the voice of Jesus in these parables? Is God speaking to you?

- These two brief parables belong together because they make the same point from a slightly different point of view, as Jesus intended.

- Jesus is giving his disciples two situations that show what the kingdom of the heavens is like.

- What Matthew wanted to teach his readers in these parables of Jesus about God's kingdom is simple: Let the world have "everything else," but God's kingdom: priceless.

- Thinking about the hidden treasure, the one who discovers the treasure hidden in a field seems to have stumbled across it by chance.

- Under ancient Jewish law, a worker who stumbled across a treasure in a field and dug it up had to give it up to the field's owner.

- But this man took extra care not to dig up the treasure until he had bought the field.

- This parable is all about the value of the hidden treasure, a treasure that is worth every sacrifice to get once found.

- In a world without banks or safety deposit boxes, it was common to bury your valuables, your treasures.

- Jesus told this story because it is a story which captures everyone's imaginations.

- Who hasn't imagined what it would be like to find a fortune in buried treasure?

- The odds back then of finding a buried treasure in your backyard or your field are about the same as they are today; one in a million maybe one in a billion.

- Because the man who found the treasure was only a tenant farmer, he had to sell all that he had, all his belongings, everything, in order to buy that field.

- The point Jesus is making in this parable is that God's kingdom is worth infinitely more than any financial, material or physical hardship or earthly wealth.

- The kingdom of heaven is worth more than all the money in the world, more than all the stuff we own or will ever own, and more than any level of comfort we can buy.

- Let the world have "everything else," but God's kingdom: priceless.

- Building on the idea of the first parable, the second story of the pair is of a merchant who finds a pearl of incredible value while searching for beautiful pearls.

- In the first parable, the man stumbles across the treasure entirely by accident, whereas in the second parable the merchant comes across a priceless pearl while seeking beautiful pearls.

- While both characters in these parables find their fortunes in different ways, they both come to the same conclusion.

- The only way to get the priceless treasures they discovered was to sell everything they had.

- The merchant appears to be a collector who is looking for the best most beautiful of all pearls, pearls that would be the greatest of his collection.

- But what he finds is a pearl of such beauty and value that it was worth sacrificing his entire collection to possess.

- While he was an expert in pearls, he considered the sale of all his merchandise and his collection to be a fair trade for this one pearl.

- He had no interest in selling for profit such a great pearl.

- The message of this second parable is a reflection of the first, that God's kingdom is priceless and that no sacrifice is too great to get it.

- Let the world have "everything else," but God's kingdom: priceless.

- In all of history, people have been willing to invest everything they have for goals that don't last.

- Many throw their lives away for momentary pleasures, money, real estate, treasures, education, reputation, and so on.

- But what are any of these compared to knowing God has given you the kingdom of the heavens in Jesus Christ?

- Jesus said, "Those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples." (Luke 14:33)

- Does he want us homeless and starving? No, he wants us to put his kingdom first.

- We invest ourselves in many things, but rarely does there come along an opportunity that would cause us to forget everything else, sell it all, and risk everything in our lives for that opportunity.

- If one of us found something of infinite worth, something truly priceless, that we could have as our own, then how far would we be willing to go to get it?

- Jesus tells his listeners in these two little parables that the kingdom of the heavens, God's kingdom, is that priceless thing that we are all looking for.

- To a young man who loved his money Jesus said, “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”(Mark 10:21)

- Jesus is saying the opposite of MasterCard. "Let me take care of everything else. You go after God's kingdom: it alone is priceless."

- How about VISA? They claim, "VISA is all you need."

- Jesus says, "What you really need is the kingdom of heaven."

- Whether you have found the kingdom of God because you stumbled across it quite by accident or because you have been intentionally seeking it does not matter.

- Jesus expects us to invest all that we are and all that we have in his kingdom. He expects us to hold our possessions, our stuff, loosely, to hold all that we have and all that we are with open hands not closed fists.

- Paul the apostle wrote, "I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage that I may gain Christ..." (Philippians 3:8).

- He also wrote: "I know what it is to be in need and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content. In any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want, I can do everything through him who gives me strength." (Philippians 4:12-13)

- Two women met at a cocktail party after a separation of many years.

- After the initial delighted exchange of greetings, the first woman noticed that her friend was wearing an extraordinary diamond.

- She couldn't help commenting, "That's the most beautiful and enormous diamond I have ever seen!"

- "Yes, it's an unusual diamond," was the reply. "It's the Callahan Diamond. And it comes complete with the Callahan curse."

- "What's the Callahan curse?"

- "Why! Mr. Callahan, of course," She said.

- This woman sold herself to her husband for something much less valuable than what Jesus has to offer.

- If we truly understand that nothing in this life lasts and that the only treasures we can count on lasting forever are the investments and deposits we make into his kingdom, then we will want to take full advantage of those opportunities by sacrificing our time, our talents, our treasures, and our testimonies to share our experience of Jesus with others.

- Can you hear the voice of Jesus in the Scriptures today? Will you listen to him and do what he asks?

- Let the world have "everything else," but God's kingdom: priceless.

Getting the Kingdom, 2: The Weeds, "Evil Among Us" Matthew 13:24-30 & 36b-43

- This week in our series, "getting the kingdom," we're going to look at the parable of the weeds and its explanation.

- We're going to leave out the two short parables about the mustard seed and the yeast, but we will come back to those at the end of this teaching series.

- Before we read our Scripture lesson, I want to point out that this parable is only found in Matthew. It has no parallels with Mark, Luke, or John, so again, it is only found in Matthew.

- Let's take a look at our gospel lesson for this morning. Matthew 13:24-30 & 36b-43

The Parable of the Weeds

²⁴ Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. ²⁵ But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. ²⁶ When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.

²⁷ “The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’

²⁸ “‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.

“The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’

²⁹ “‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. ³⁰ Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’”

The Parable of the Weeds Explained

^36b His disciples came to him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.”

³⁷ He answered, “The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. ³⁸ The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the people of the kingdom. The weeds are the people of the evil one, ³⁹ and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.

⁴⁰ “As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. ⁴¹ The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. ⁴² They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. ⁴³ Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears, let them hear.

- Can we hear the voice of Jesus in the parable of the weeds this morning? Are we prepared to listen to what God wants to say to us?

- We are learning that one of the reasons Jesus tells kingdom parables is to show what the kingdom of heaven is really like as opposed to people's expectations.

- First century Jews expected that when Messiah came that the kingdom of God came with him, and while it is true that in Jesus God's kingdom is present, however, its complete fulfillment is delayed.

*- One of the things that this parable teaches is that we live between the times, between "the already" and "the not yet."

- In Jesus, the kingdom of God has come already, it is present, but the kingdom has not yet come in all its fullness.

- The kingdom will come in its fullness when Jesus comes again.

- In this "parable of the weeds", Jesus told his listeners that God's kingdom grows in a kind of quiet abundance, yet evil is present in the world.

- We learned in "the parable of the sower" that good soil produces and that God is looking for the church to sow seed so that he can bring about abundant growth.

- In this parable, we see that not only is God looking for abundant growth, but his enemy is looking to plant weeds among the wheat in the world.

- This enemy is crafty and wicked and is able to plant his weeds by stealth and cunning at no-fault to the master's servants.

- In warfare and feuds of the ancient world it was a common practice to plant bearded darnel among the wheat of your enemy.

- The practice was pervasive enough in the Roman world that they even passed a law against it.

- It is very likely this weed Jesus was thinking of since bearded darnel was a poisonous fungus bearing weed which closely resembles wheat when both are young.

- Only after the heads formed were the servants able to tell that someone had sown weeds among the wheat.

- By that time the roots of the weeds and the wheat would be entangled.

- So the servants went to their master and said, "Sir, did you not so good seed in your field? So where did the weeds come from?"

-Had the master's servants made some mistake in their planting? Had they planted the wrong seeds?

- No, it was an enemy. In fact, the grammar of the Greek hints that the master understood that the weeds were the work of a particular enemy, an arch enemy.

- So the natural desire of the slaves would be to pull up the weeds, get rid of them, but because they're growing together in the same soil and the roots are entangled, then pulling up the weeds would put the wheat at great risk.

- The master knows that it is much easier to let the wheat reach its full maturity and when the time is right gather the weeds for burning and harvest the wheat & bring it into his barn.

- What would be convenient for us would be if God remove the darnel weeds now.

- What is best is not always what we expect or what is most convenient.

- Though there be evil among us, at the harvest, God will exercise his justice.

- In this parable, Jesus was preparing his disciples for the reality that the coming of the kingdom would not be as soon as they expected, but that there would be an extended time of waiting before the kingdom comes.

- Good and evil will coexist in the world until the end of time.

- The weeds are gathered together first to be burned because evil must be destroyed for there to be only good.

- Though there be evil among us, at the harvest, God will exercise his justice.

- Thankfully for us, we do not have to rely on ourselves to interpret this parable. Matthew has shared with us Jesus' own interpretation of his parable.

- The disciples come to Jesus and ask him to explain the parable of the weeds in the field.

- “The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. ³⁸ The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the people of the kingdom. The weeds are the people of the evil one,

³⁹ and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.

⁴⁰ “As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age.

⁴¹ The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil.

⁴² They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

⁴³ Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears, let them hear.

- Though there be evil among us, at the harvest, God will exercise his justice.

- The Son of Man is Jesus' favorite title for himself. This phrase was a common expression in Aramaic which simply meant human being.

- But if we read Daniel 7, we find the phrase "one like a son of man" used of one who approaches the Ancient of Days on his throne, i.e., God, and receives dominion, glory, and an everlasting kingdom.

- Believe it or not, this idea is something new in Jewish thought, we read nothing like this elsewhere in the Law, Prophets or Writings.

- Later, however, in the book of the first Enoch, written sometime after Malachi but before the birth of Jesus (& left out of our protestant Bibles I might add), we find the phrase Son of Man used to in reference to one described as the Righteous One, the Chosen One, and the Messiah.

- First Enoch also claims that the Son of Man was pre-existent, i.e., he is eternal; that he has the attributes of the Messiah, the righteous branch, pictured in Isaiah 11.

- Furthermore, the Son of Man figure in first Enoch is pictured as sitting on a glorious throne.

- So in the book of Daniel we have the figure of one like a son of man and in the book of first Enoch we have a pre-existent, messianic, gloriously enthroned Son of Man, and now with Jesus we find him repeatedly referring to himself as the Son of Man.

- Add to these clues together and what are we to conclude about Jesus and the kingdom of the heavens?

- No wonder the early church denied the claims of Rome that Caesar is Lord. The church defied Rome by declaring that Jesus Christ is Lord!

- Though there be evil among us, at the harvest, God will exercise his justice.

- Jesus gave his disciples a picture of himself as the Son of Man planting the good seed of the good news of the kingdom of God thus bringing the world under his dominion.

- While the field is the world, it is God who supplies the power to spread his kingdom.

- Jesus reveals in this parable that there is a cosmic battle going on for human lives between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness, the world's evil principalities and powers.

- By using both the terms "evil one" and "the devil", Jesus wants his disciples to be good-and-certain they know who their enemy is.

- It is impossible in this world to avoid the battle between good and evil. There can be no fence sitters because Satan owns the fence. One either belongs to the kingdom of the heavens or to the powers of darkness.

- The harvest image is significant to Mediterranean life and is a natural fit as a metaphor for the end of the age in which evil is destroyed and an eternity of goodness and glory are ushered in with the un-fading light of God's presence.

- Though there be evil among us, at the harvest, God will exercise his justice.

- The secret or mystery of the kingdom of the heavens in this parable does not have to do with the coexistence of good and evil in the church or in the world, but, as I said near the beginning of this message, it has to do with the kingdom being already present and not yet fully present.

- The re-launch of the kingdom began with the presence of the eternal Son of Man, Jesus Messiah, becoming flesh, pitching his tabernacle among fellow human beings.

- The kingdom of God will only be complete with the return of Jesus and only then will God judge the living and the dead, and renew and restore all things.

- Until then, we live between the times, the time of Jesus' first coming and the time of his second coming.

- As we wait, the church is called in the power of the Holy Spirit to introduce people to the wonders of the kingdom that has come and is coming in the person of Jesus Christ.

- Can you hear the voice of Jesus in Matthew's Gospel this morning? Is God's Holy Spirit speaking to you today? Will you listen to him and do what he says?

*- Though there be evil among us, at the harvest, God will exercise his justice.

(From June 10) Renewal's Third Ingredients: The Greatest Commandments Scripture: Mark 12:28-34

- For almost 500 years, much of what the Jews thought would take place at the end of the Babylonian exile as promised in the prophets did not happen.

- God had not restored the kingdom to Israel as they thought he would; therefore, Israel was still in exile for her sins.

- The Jews were waiting for a deliverer, a Messiah who would forgive the sins of Israel and fully establish God's kingdom on earth.

- John the Baptist prepared the way for Jesus by preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

- When Jesus began to preach, Mark tells his readers that he proclaimed a three part message.

* - “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” Mark 1:15 (ESV)

- The message Jesus preached meant: the time is fulfilled, Israel's exile is over; her sins are forgiven. The time of God's reign over Israel has come, he is near, and he will receive you into his kingdom as you repent and believe in this good news.

- At the heart of the message of the gospel is repentance.

- If we want to take part in the kingdom of God and accept his reign over our lives, then we must cultivate in our lives & in the life of the church an attitude of repentance.

- At the heart of the Greatest Commandments is repentance. Repentance is really the core, what is central to these two Great Commands.

- A Jewish understanding of repentance is turning around. It means to turn & return to God.

- To repent for a Jewish person meant in the first century to turn away from doing things my way and return to God and learn to do things his way.

- The literal meaning of the Greek word for repent is to change one's mind. To repent, I need to stop insisting on doing things my way.

- We need to change our minds about thinking that our ways of doing things are the best ways of doing things and return to learning God's way and thinking that God's way is the best way of doing things and God's way is the best way of being.

- I think that it is clearly obvious what repentance has to do with church renewal. Let's look again at our definition for church renewal.

* - Church renewal is the continual transformation of God's people into the people he has called them to be, doing the things he has called them to do.

- Clearly, for the church to continually be transformed into the likeness of Christ, then we must cultivate attitudes of repentance.

- Now, let's consider Mark 12. Earlier in this chapter, Jesus was questioned by the Pharisees and Herodians about paying taxes to Caesar.

- Then the Sadducees, who were the ruling priests and did not believe in the resurrection, questioned Jesus about the resurrection and marriage.

- Having successfully rebutted the Pharisees, Herodians, and Sadducees, Mark lays out for us a third encounter between Jesus and a scribal expert in the law of Moses. Let's read it.

*- ²⁸  And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?”
²⁹ Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.
³⁰ And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’
³¹  The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
* ³² And the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher. You have truly said that he is one, and there is no other besides him.
³³ And to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
³⁴ And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And after that no one dared to ask him any more questions. Mark 12:28-34 (ESV)

* - At the time of Jesus, accepted Jewish thinking with regards to the law of Moses is that ritual purity and sacrifice were held in their minds as being equally important as love.

- When the scribe asked his question it's safe for us to assume it was a public question. The Pharisees, Herodians and Sadducees, along with Jesus' disciples and the crowds, were probably all still hanging around.

- The answer Jesus gave to the scribe's question is a cloaked judgment against the legalism of keeping the law as being equal to the law of love for God and neighbor.

- According to Jesus, a person needs to devote their entire being to loving God.

- Who among us are completely devoted to loving God every waking moment? Surely, not one among us loves God perfectly.

- We need renewal in the church continually & we need to repent regularly because our love for God is always incomplete.

- No amount of religious rule keeping can replace a genuine love for God.

- The only thing religion can do is create a culture of comparisons where we see ourselves as either better or worse than others; where we are trapped and held captive by our inflated egos or by the shame of our religious failures.

- We practice spiritual disciplines for this very reason; not to keep score, but to grow in our loving relationship with God.

* - Jesus brought Leviticus 19:18 together with Deuteronomy 6: 4-5 because our love for God should naturally fuel and flow into love for our neighbors.

- As the apostle John wrote in his first letter, 'anyone who says I love God yet hates his brother is a liar.'

- Love for God necessarily precipitates love for our neighbors. In other words, if we do not actively love our neighbors, then can we honestly say that we love God?

- If we stop and think for a moment, we realize that the Ten Commandments are really all about love.

- The first four commandments have to do with loving God and the last six Commandments have to do with loving others.

- Why not take some time this week and sit down and read through the Ten Commandments from either Exodus 20 or Deuteronomy 5 from the perspective of love revealed by Jesus' words.

- People who are captivated by the kingdom of God, who have allowed God to enfold their story into his story love God and they show it by loving their neighbors.

- According to Jesus, the kingdom of God is all about love, love for God and love for others.

- Repentance is at the heart of real love for God and real love for others.

- A renewed church shows love for God and neighbors by inviting others into God's story.

- Now, the scribe's response to Jesus' answer is very telling in that he admits that the law teaches the superiority of love over ritual purity and animal sacrifice.

- Mark's readers should understand that by stressing the importance of love over sacrifice he is foreshadowing the abolition of the sacrificial system that comes about through the suffering, death and resurrection of Christ.

- The scribe's response to Jesus also reveals to us something else. It reveals to us that Jesus was starting to get through to him.

- As Jesus said, "you are not far from the kingdom of God."

- When we come to understand that love is more important than ritual purity and sacrifice then we are not far from the kingdom of God.

- Entry into the kingdom requires repentance and faith.

- By developing an understanding that loving God and loving others is more important than anything else, then we will be challenged to further thought and to take decisive action.

- The Scriptures reveal to us that love is a verb. One cannot hide like a hermit and claim to love because love must be in expressed in loving action.

- A renewed church shows love for God and neighbors by inviting others into God's story.

* - Last week we learned that: a renewed church is Spirit empowered for the work of inviting others into God story.

- We cannot possibly love God and love our neighbors in the way we are meant to unless we are empowered by the Holy Spirit.

- Only the power of God can accomplish the work of renewed hearts thereby empowering us to keep the greatest Commandments.

- We must affirm that we are Spirit empowered for the work of inviting others into God story.

* - And we must affirm: A renewed church shows love for God and neighbors by inviting others into God's story.

* - How do we invite others into God's story?

* - We invite others through friendship, service, *sharing, caring, *listening, empathizing, *healing, delivering, reconciling, *feeding, clothing, *by being inclusive rather than exclusive, *and by announcing the news that the exile is over; God's kingdom is near, repent and believe the good news.

- These are the actions of people who belong to the kingdom of God, who love God and neighbors.

* - A renewed church shows love for God and neighbors by inviting others into God's story.