Now may I encourage you to turn
in your Bibles to the 13th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, Matthew
chapter 13, and I shall read selected portions
from this chapter, and the rationale behind that selection, I trust,
will become clear as we move into the exposition of the last
two verses that I shall read in your hearing. Matthew 13,
verses 1 through 3a, and then we'll drop down to verse 10.
On that day went Jesus out of the house and sat by the seaside. And there were gathered unto
him great multitudes, so that he entered into a boat and sat.
And all the multitude stood on the beach, and he spoke to them
many things in parables. Now verse 10, And the disciples
came and said unto him, Why are you speaking unto them in parables? And he answered and said unto
them, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom
of heaven, but to them it is not given. For whosoever has,
to him shall be given, and he shall have abundance. But whosoever
has not, from him shall be taken away even that which he has.
Therefore speak I to them in parables, because seeing they
see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.
And unto them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, which says,
By hearing you shall hear, and shall in no wise understand,
and seeing you shall see, and shall in no wise perceive. For
this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull
of hearing, and their eyes have they closed, lest perhaps they
should perceive with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and
understand with their heart, and should turn again, and I
should heal them. But blessed are your eyes, for
they see, and your ears, for they hear. For truly I say unto
you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see the things
which you see and saw them not, and to hear the things which
you hear and heard them not. Now verse 34, All these things
spoke Jesus in parables unto the multitudes, and without a
parable he spoke nothing unto them. that it might be fulfilled
which was spoken through the prophet, saying, I will open
my mouth in parables, I will utter things hidden from the
world. Then he left the multitude and
went into the house, and his disciples came unto him, saying,
Explain unto us the parable of the tares, now verse forty-four,
The kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure hidden in the
field, which a man found and hid, and in his joy he goes and
sells all that he has, and buys that field. Again, the kingdom
of heaven is like unto a man that is a merchant seeking goodly
pearls, and having found one pearl of great price, he went
and sold all that he had, and bought it. Those of you who regularly attend
this place of worship know that last Lord's Day morning I completed
the consecutive expositions of the book of 1 Peter. I do have
a desire that I trust will issue in practical performance to bring
several summarizing messages on that letter that has become
very precious to many of us. But due to the disruptions of
vacations and weddings and the changing complexion of the congregation,
I'll probably bring those gleanings of 1 Peter in the first few Lord's
Day evenings in September. But this morning, we're going
to begin to consider two of the parables that are found here
in Matthew 13. As I've prayerfully reflected
on how best to use these two Lord's Day mornings closest to
the two weddings, my mind has been drawn to these two parables
of our Lord Jesus, parables which I have been fascinated with for
years, but upon which I've never preached. never made any effort
to expound them. Well, God willing, this morning
and then next Lord's Day morning, I will make an effort to open
up and apply these two parables, the parable of the treasure hidden
in the field and the parable of the pearl of great price. Most of you or many of you would
know that these two parables come in a context in which, as
Matthew records this aspect of the ministry of our Lord, He
gathers together and opens up or records seven of the parables
of our Lord spoken at this time. They are ordinarily called kingdom
parables, and in them the great subject of the kingdom of God
is central. In two of the parables, the sower
and the soils, and the sowing of the seed, the good seed and
the bad seed, we have some indication of how the message of the kingdom
is received. It is as seed is sown. Some falls
on good ground, some falls on not so good ground, and the kingdom
advances as the message of the kingdom is proclaimed, and the
response is along the lines of the differing soils described
by our Lord. And then in the parable of the
dragnet and possibly that of the wheat and the tares, our
Lord is showing the mixed character of the kingdom and also the future
purification of the kingdom. The tares will be gathered in
bundles and cast into fire. And the bad fish that have come
up in the dragnet will be discarded and the good fish gathered and
brought into the kingdom in its future and consummate glory. And then in the parables of the
mustard seed and the leaven, we are taught something of the
growth and the development of the kingdom. The kingdom of heaven
is like a mustard seed, the smallest of seeds, yet it grows. into
this tree which is able to become home for the birds of the air,
and a little bit of leaven put into the flower affects the whole
lump. And here we are taught something
of the growth and the development of the kingdom. And then in these
two parables, the parable of the treasure hidden in the field
and the pearl of great price, our Lord is underscoring something
of the preciousness of the kingdom for all who are brought into
that kingdom. The kingdom of heaven is like
unto a treasure. Again, the kingdom of heaven
is like unto a merchant seeking goodly pearls. Now, in any initial
reading of the two parables, it is evident that in a real
sense they are twins, not identical twins. They are fraternal twins. They have many things in common,
though they are not identical twins. The common denominators
are obvious. In both cases, a single object
of supreme value is found. Look at your Bibles and see the
language. The kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure hidden
in a field which a man found. The kingdom of heaven is like
unto a man seeking goodly pearls and having found. There's one
of the common denominators of both parables. In both cases,
a single object of supreme value is found. A treasure is found. A goodly pearl is found. Furthermore, in both cases, the
single object of supreme value is acquired at the price of the
total liquidation of all other assets. In each case, the thing
that is found of precious and supreme value is acquired at
the price of the total liquidation of all other assets. Look at
the text. Verse 44, which a man found and
hid, and in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys
that field. Verse 46, And having found one
pearl of great price, he went and sold all that he had, and
bought it. There is the second common denominator. In both cases, the single object
of supreme value, whether the treasure or the pearl, is acquired
at the price of the total liquidation of all other assets. Sold all that he had. He went and sold all that he
had. Those are the two obvious common
denominators in these parables. And then there's one major factor
of difference, easily observed. In the first parable, the treasure
is discovered unsought and unexpectedly. The text says, The kingdom of
heaven is like unto a treasure hidden in the field, which a
man found. He found it. How we found it,
we don't know. We'll come to that in a moment
when we try to grab hold of the basic facts of the parable. But
in the parable of the hidden treasure, the man finds his treasure. He comes upon it, unsought, unexpectedly. But in the parable of the pearl
of great price, there is a merchant, we are told, seeking goodly pearls. This man's business is pearls. He thinks pearls. He eats pearls.
He sleeps pearls. He's seeking goodly pearls. He's not one of these who's just
trying to find some junk pearls and pass them off as good stuff.
He's a serious pearl merchant. Now, I've never met a serious
pearl merchant, except here in the text. But you see, there
is a marked contrast. In conjunction with the treasure,
it is found. In conjunction with that one
pearl of great price, it comes in the course of a life taken
up with pearls. Here's a man seeking goodly pearls
and in that pursuit he comes upon this one pearl of great
price. Now before we are done considering
the instruction which these two parables are meant to convey,
we'll address the significance both of the common denominators
and of that fundamental distinction between the two parables. But
in this hour we take up verse 44 And I'm going to attempt to
expound and apply this parable under this title, The Hidden
Treasure, What Is It, and Have You Found and Acquired It? The Hidden Treasure, What Is
It, and Have You Found and Acquired It? And I want to press the rationale
for that title. Jesus said, the kingdom of heaven
is like. In other words, wherever the
dynamics of the kingdom of heaven are operative, whenever someone
is born of the Spirit and sees and enters the kingdom, whenever
the King of Grace conquers one of His subjects and brings them
into the kingdom of grace and power, What is said of this man
who found a treasure will be true of every single individual
who gets into the kingdom. And according to my Bible, you're
either in the kingdom of grace and of power, or you're in the
kingdom of darkness, of death that will lead to hell. And I
want us to come to this parable not with an innocent curiosity
alone, what does it mean, but with a felt sense of the tremendous
personal interest each of us has in this parable. If you are not the man who's
found a treasure, you're not in the kingdom. No place for idle curiosity or
even mere innocent curiosity? What does it mean? No, I'm preaching
this morning on the hidden treasure. What is it? And with a passionate
desire that you answer honestly this question, have you found
and acquired it? For that's the thing to which
our text points. Having found it, he hid it, sold
all that he had, and bought the field in which the treasure was
buried. The hidden treasure, what is
it? And have you found it and acquired it? All right, we begin
then considering under our first heading the basic facts of the
parable explained. Our Lord in these parables takes
the stuff of events and circumstances and commodities that would be
well known by those of his own day. And for many of us, we've
got to put ourselves back there and seek to get into their mindset. And when our Lord said, the kingdom
of heaven is like unto a treasure hidden in the field, he was not
talking about something that would be foreign to their knowledge
and to their experience. Think of what it would be like
before the days of a local bank where you could go down and rent
a safe deposit box to put your valuables. I remember back in
1974, I think it was, we came into a little bit of money from
one of our relatives and I had received some counsel that I
ought to put a little bit of it into gold and so I bought
eight Mexican I forgot what they were, gold coins, they, at the
time, gold, I think it was about $250 an ounce, invested $2,000
in gold, and there it's been sitting since 1974, and it ain't
worth much more than that now. I'd like to go to the person
that gave me that counsel, but be that as it may, I was able
to take these valuable coins and put them in a safe deposit
box, and I don't think of them sometimes for years on end, except
when I'm on an illustration, and can bring them up, all right?
But remember, back then there were no local banks with safe
deposit box, nor did they have heavy, thick, steel, lead-lined
safes that you could purchase and keep somewhere in your basement
that weighed 500 pounds and put your valuables in there. grandma's
old ring and all that. No. If you had something very
valuable, it was not unusual to take that commodity, whatever
it was, coins, jewelry, and to put it in a substantial thick
wooden box and bury it in some obscure place. Some who've studied
the times of our Lord said that wealthy men would be advised
to split up their assets like that into three major divisions,
and one of them should be buried. Well, apparently what happened
in this case is someone had valuables called a treasure, and this is
the standard word used for treasure. The wise men, imagine I came
and opened up their treasures, same word, lay not up treasures
upon earth, but treasures in heaven. And the man put his treasures
in a box and buried it. And then he tells us that a man
found. A man found. Who was the man?
He's undesignated. Whose field was it? It's undesignated. What was he doing in that field?
We don't know. It just says, which a man found. Now, he may have been a hired
hand of the man who owned the field, who may have been a distant
relative to the one who put the treasure in the field. The Lord
doesn't give us all these details. Now, whether he was following
behind his mule who was drawing the plow, and he heard the plow
bite into something substantial, and he told the mule to stop,
we don't know. One thing we know, he didn't
own it. He found the treasure. He opens up the box and sees
there is real substantial treasure here. Once he discovered it,
he looks over this way and this way and sees what's in there.
He wants to make sure no one else is privy to his discovery
and Jesus said he then hid it. He either buries it in the same
place, or perhaps feeling, well, if people see the dirt disturbed
around here, they might get suspicious and come and dig around it, so
he may look this way and that way and the other way, find some
other place. All we are told is, having discovered the hidden
treasure, he himself hides it. And he hides it with a view to
doing something. Look at the text. And the words
of our Lord Jesus are very precise. And in his joy, He goes and sells
all that he has and buys that field. A very strange construction
when the Lord says, in his joy. It means from, from the very
posture and out of the context and because of his joy, he goes
and sells all that he has and buys that field. I don't know
if he had a garage sale. I don't know if he advertised
in the local paper or went to the local supermarket where they
pin announcements and said, everything for sale, cheap, first bidder,
first come, first served. It's there for cheap. I don't
know. But one thing is clear. He was whistling all the while
he was selling. It says, and in his joy he goes
and he sells. So you can't think of him saying,
oh, I've got a treasure there in the field. But man, oh man,
I've had this particular set of tools, this particular set
of golf clubs. I can think of many around the
golf. And I've got this clock that
was given to me by my great-grandfather. Boy, I don't know if the treasure.
No. It says, in his joy, in his joy
he goes, in his joy he sells. And he comes whistling up to
the walk of the owner. and says, you know that field
over there? Yeah. I want it. And doesn't tell us
whether they bickered, whether they bargained, whether he had
to give him every last cent he had. I don't know. All it says
is he sold all that he had and he struck a bargain. And that
day when he walked away, he had title to the field. All right? Those are the basic facts that
are found in the parable. Having ascertained the basic
facts of the parable, this man found the treasure and in his
joy went and sold all that he had and bought the field. What is, secondly now, the central
truth of the parable? Having considered the basic facts
of the parable explained, now the central truth of the parable
identified. The kingdom of heaven is like. And in what does the central
likeness consist? And you don't say, well, was
it right for him to hide the treasure once he followed? If
the field was not his, didn't the treasure... What about the
ethics of what he did? Forget it. It has nothing to
do with the central truth of the parable. You don't get locked
up in all the little details saying, this must have... No.
The kingdom of heaven is like. In some ways, it's like a sower
who goes out to sow. That doesn't tell you everything
about the kingdom you need to know, but it does tell you how
the kingdom is advanced by sowing the seed of the Word. It tells
you that it will meet with a different reception. Some will receive
it like hard-packed wayside soil, some like shallow rocky soil,
some like thorny soil, some like good soil. Is that the only and
the comprehensive, extensive teaching on the Kingdom? No.
It teaches certain aspects of the truth of the Kingdom. Well,
likewise, when our Lord is committed to underscore the preciousness
of the kingdom and how it becomes precious to all the subjects
of the kingdom. He is not giving us an exhaustive,
comprehensive dissertation of the whole biblical doctrine of
the preciousness of the kingdom to all who enter the kingdom.
He is highlighting certain aspects of it. And what is it? What is
the central truth of this parable? Well, certainly we can say with
confidence what it is not. Certainly our Lord is not teaching
that the message and blessings of the kingdom of grace ought
to be hidden from men. The kingdom of heaven is like
unto a treasure hidden in the field. Therefore, let's hide
the message and only give it out to those who come and ask
for it. No. Jesus, in this very chapter,
it is said, when He saw the multitudes, He didn't retire. He got in a
boat, pushed out from the land, and preached to them. So the
message of the kingdom is not to be hidden. Jesus said, Make
disciples of all the nations who shall be witnesses unto me,
both in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of
the earth. I have a divine warrant to stand
here this morning and declare God's treasure house of grace,
His treasure chest of grace, in Christ and say, in Christ
there is forgiveness, reconciliation, pardon, adoption, the gift of
the Spirit, the pledge of eternal life. It is all there, treasured
up in Christ, and Christ is there for you if you will have Him.
Certainly the message of the parable is not that the blessings
of the kingdom of grace ought to be hidden from men, nor is
it that the blessings of the kingdom can be purchased by the
currency of our own works. It says that he sold all that
he had and bought the field, so he paid for the treasure.
The treasure was the reward of his payment. Therefore, if we
bring enough shekels, God will give us the blessings of the
kingdom and all that is in Christ the King. No, that would contradict
this very chapter again. When Jesus is telling his own
disciples why the parables conceal truth from the multitudes, and
while they reveal truth to his own, he says in verse 11, unto
you it is given to know the mysteries. You know the mysteries not because
you're more clever, not because you have something of worth which
you've presented to God and purchased. This privilege, it is given.
It is given, Philippians 1, 29, we read this morning, unto you
is given on the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but
to suffer for his name. The first beatitude, blessed
are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. The
first thing God does to a sinner is to strip him and bring him
to the place where he realizes, I have nothing, I can do nothing,
I can conjure up nothing to present to God as the reason why he ought
to pardon and forgive me and take me into his kingdom as one
of his cleansed and forgiven subjects. the central truth of
the parable has nothing whatsoever to do with any notion that the
message of the kingdom ought to be hidden? That we can, by
some currency of our own works, earn the blessings of the kingdom? No. It is true that this parable,
as with all the parables, there is a central, a dominant, an
all-embracing truth illustrated. And the crucial issue in understanding
it is having at least a little understanding of what Jesus meant
when he said, the kingdom of heaven is like. The kingdom of
heaven is like. What is the kingdom of heaven?
Now some have asserted that the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom
of God are two different things. Folks, I don't mean to be unkind
if there's anyone sitting here who has believed that. That is
sheer biblical nonsense. Unbiblical nonsense, I should
say. In a passage such as Matthew 19, 23, and 24, Jesus uses the
terms interchangeably in the very same context. Matthew 19,
23, and 24. In speaking of the rich young
ruler, as we generally describe him, Jesus said to his disciples,
verily I say to you, it's hard for a rich man to enter into
the kingdom of heaven, And again I say to you, it's easier for
a camel to go through a needle's eye than for a rich man to enter
into the kingdom of God. Jesus uses the terms interchangeably.
And when you study certain passages in Matthew and see their parallels
in Mark and Luke, where Matthew says kingdom of heaven, and for
good and wise reasons, which we'll not go into, Mark and Luke
will say kingdom of God. Kingdom of heaven, kingdom of
God, are one in the same kingdom. And when we turn to our Bibles,
we realize that whatever the kingdom of God is, the dominant
emphasis in the New Testament is that the kingdom comes when
the King Himself comes. Look at Matthew 3 and verse 1.
In those days comes John the Baptist preaching in the wilderness
of Judea, saying, Repent. Why? For the kingdom of heaven
is at hand. And how did the Kingdom of Heaven
come to be at hand? Because the King Himself was
now going to present Himself in His public ministry. Shortly
thereafter, Jesus is baptized, and then when we read the preaching
of Jesus, chapter 4 and verse 17, from that time began Jesus
to preach and say, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is in hand. It is in hand in the presence
and person and work of the King of grace, the Lord Jesus. And
so when he commissions the twelve, he says, that's what you're to
go out and preach. I'm giving you power to cast
out demons, heal the sick, raise the dead. And these are to be
validations that the king has come in regal power to invade
the kingdom of darkness. The kingdom of darkness with
which sickness and demonic possession and death are associated. You
go in My authority and in My power, heal the sick, raise the
dead, cast out demons, and this is what you are to preach. Matthew
10 and verse 7. And as you go preach, saying,
the kingdom of heaven is at hand, heal the sick, raise the dead,
cast out demons, you see the sense of what the kingdom is.
The King has come. We come in His name, in His authority. The kingdom of darkness is going
to yield before the King who has come to establish His kingdom. And then when the 70 are sent
out, you find the same emphasis in Luke 10, verses 8 and 9. And
when we come to the book of Acts, when Paul summarizes his preaching,
he summarizes it as a preaching of the kingdom. Look at Acts
chapter 20 for our final verse. Acts chapter 20. He summarizes
three and a half years of ministry among the Ephesians. tells them
the disposition with which he served the Lord. Verse 20 of
Acts 20, I shrank not from declaring unto you anything that was profitable,
teaching you publicly and from house to house, testifying to
Jews and Greeks repentance toward God, faith toward the Lord Jesus. And now, behold, I go bound in
the Spirit to Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall
befall me there, save that the Holy Spirit testifies unto me
in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me, but
I hold not my life of any account as dear to myself that I may
accomplish my course in the ministry I received from the Lord Jesus,
now notice, to testify the gospel of the grace of God. And now
behold, I know that you all among whom I went about preaching the
kingdom shall see my face no more. When Paul preached repentance
toward God and faith toward the Lord Jesus, when he testified
the gospel of the grace of God, he was preaching the kingdom.
The kingdom has come in the person of the King and all of God's
gracious disposition toward sinners in that King of grace, the Lord
Jesus. Now, with that basic understanding,
and that's not an exhausted description of the biblical doctrine of the
kingdom, I must only touch on this basic element that we might
feel the weight of this parable. Now, with this understanding
that the kingdom of heaven is the rule of God in grace and
power, connected with the person and through the work of the Lord
Jesus, what is the central truth of our parable? The kingdom of
heaven is like when the rule and reign of grace In the person
and work of the Lord Jesus comes to terminate upon a man, upon
a woman, upon a boy, upon a girl. The kingdom of heaven is like
unto treasure hid in a field, which a man found and hid, and
in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that
field. I believe with all my heart,
this is the central teaching of the parable. You might express
it in different words. I claim no divine inspiration
for the words that I use, but words like this, similar to them,
that capture the essence of it. Here is the central truth of
the parable. It is this. The discovery of
the great worth of Christ and the salvation that is in Christ.
will always cause a sinner joyfully to dispense with anything and
everything that would keep him from possessing Christ and the
salvation offered to us in Christ. Now let me run it by you again.
What is the central teaching of this parable? The discovery
of the great worth of Christ and the salvation that is in
Christ will always always cause a sinner joyfully to dispense
with anything and everything that would keep him from possessing
Christ and the salvation that is offered to us in Him. Now let's see if that fits the
parable. The kingdom of heaven is like
unto a treasure hidden in a field. The treasure is Christ. and all
that is stored up in sinners for Christ, the King of Grace. And as far as this man is concerned,
the field is useless. It has no more worth than a means
to earn his living, however he was using it, until he discovers
the treasure, the discovery of the great worth of Christ and
the salvation that is in Christ. What will it do? It says, and
in his joy, He goes and sells all that he has and buys the
field. When the sinner discovers the
beauty and the worth and the treasures of grace in Christ,
he is ready joyfully, in the joy of that discovery, to dispense
with anything and everything that would keep him from possessing
Christ and the salvation offered to us in Him. This man may have
had deep, long-term emotional ties to an old grandfather's
clock in his living room, but once he got enamored with the
treasure, away with grandpa's clock. He may have had rings
from a grandmother and a great-grandmother and things of great value that
before he discovered the treasure in the field, He might periodically
sit down and look at his assets and look at the things that had
tremendous emotional and historical significance in the family lines.
They were precious to him until, until he found something more
precious. And out they went in the first
garage sale. You know what the text says? In his joy. Don't miss that. In His joy,
He goes and sells all that He has. He wants the field because
the treasure is in the field, and He knows He can't have the
treasure without the field. Nothing is important now but
the field in which the treasure is found. That's the way the
kingdom comes. It comes to us who, as sinners,
have a thousand idols in our hearts to which we are bound
with deep ties of affection. deep ties of affection. For some,
it's sensual pleasure. For others, it's aesthetic pleasure. For others, it's the pleasure
of being number one, putting others down, being first on the
block. For others, it's this, it's that,
and we have a thousand ties to a thousand things. And we walk
by the field in which the treasure is found and counted a thing
of no worth until of God through the Word discloses to us the
loveliness of Christ and the desirability of salvation in
Christ. And for the joy of that discovery,
there is nothing that is not expendable. In His joy, He goes,
He sells, and He buys. And Jesus said, The kingdom is
like So if the kingdom has come to you and the kingdom has come
to me, we have come to the discovery of the great worth of Christ
and of the salvation that is in Christ. And it has caused
us joyfully to dispense with anything and everything that
would keep us from possessing Christ and the salvation that
is in Christ. And if that's not true of you,
you're not in the kingdom. He said, it's very narrow. Call
Jesus narrow, for he said, the kingdom of heaven is like. It
is like. Wherever it comes, wherever it
comes, to whomever it comes, the kingdom is like this. God has given us a very vivid
illustration of this in a particular man, in the very book we've begun
to read. And if my definition of the heart
of the meaning of this parable is accurate, then surely the
analogy of Scripture will support it. I want you to turn to Philippians
3. I'm going to read the account
of a man who tells you all that he had, to which he had great
ties of affection, sentimentally, religiously. And then he's going
to tell us how upon a certain discovery he was ready to relinquish
it all that he might have the treasure. Finally, my brethren,
Philippians 3, 1, rejoice in the Lord to write the same things
to you. To me is not irksome, but for
you it is safe. Beware of the dogs. Beware of
the evil workers. Beware of the knife wielders.
These Judaizers want to get all the Gentiles circumcised and
become kosher Jews. Paul very inelegantly calls them
knife wielders. Not very flattering. He hadn't
gone to a user-friendly seminar. For we are the circumcision,
we are the true covenant people of God who worship by the Spirit
of God, glory in Christ Jesus, boast and exult in number Christ,
and have no confidence in the flesh, though I myself might
have confidence even in the flesh. If any other man thinks to have
confidence in the flesh, I yet more. If anyone thinks he has
the stuff with which to purchase grace, to purchase God's favor
and God's salvation. I've got a better stock than
he does. Circumcised the eighth day of the stock of Israel, of
the tribe of Benjamin. The Hebrew of the Hebrews is
touching the law. A Pharisee is touching zeal,
persecuting the church, as touching the righteousness which is in
the law, found blameless. How be it? What things were gains
to me? These things were gains to Paul
at one time. These were the treasures of his
house. He had lots of them. He said,
you think you got some? I got more. I had more. These things
were gains to me. I was tied to them with affection
and trust and pride. They were my salvation. They
were the significance of my life. These are the things that I lived
for and was ready to die for. Now what happened? Howbeit what
things were gained to me, these I have counted lost for Christ.
But what did he discover that made the difference? Yes, truly
I count all things to be lost for the excellency of the knowledge
of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I suffered the loss of all
things and count them but scubala. Dumb! Refuse! Notice that I may
gain Christ the person and be found in Him not having a righteousness
of my own, the blessing of a justifying righteousness. Paul does not
separate gaining the person and gaining the privileges. They
are inseparable in God's salvation. You can't snatch at the privileges
while being indifferent to the person. That I may gain Christ
and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own, that
righteousness which is of the law, but that which is through
faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith. There is a man who found the
treasure in the field. And most of the commentators
are careful to point out, he illustrates very vividly that
area of difference He was not like the merchant, the pearl
merchant, seeking goodly pearls. He was out seeking Christians,
committing them to prison and to death. And God said, enough. And there was the blinding light
above the brightness of the noonday Syrian sun, and there was the
voice out of heaven, and the treasure was there before him. And he said, when I saw the worth
of the treasure for joy, I sold all that I had. I counted but
a pile of dung. What was his gain is now a pile
of dung. Why? Because the Holy Spirit
showed him the beauty and the loveliness of Christ and all
the gracious salvation that is in Christ. The kingdom of heaven
is like Paul the great example. The negative example is that
wretched young man of Matthew 19. Look at the contrast. He comes to Jesus, and he seems
to be a merchant seeking goodly pearls. Behold, verse 16, one
came to him and said, Teacher, what good things shall I do that
I may have eternal life? And he said, Why do you ask me
concerning that which is good? One, there is good. But if you
would enter into life, keep the commandments. And he said unto
him, Which? And Jesus said, You shall not kill, you shall not
commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false
witness, honor your father and your mother, you shall love your
neighbors as yourself. The young man said unto him,
All these things have I observed, what do I lack yet? Now notice
Jesus' answer. Jesus said to him, If you would
be perfect, if you would be complete, if you would have what you say
you desire, eternal life, you obviously have morality, and
uprightness and decency and honorableness, but you yourself have said you
don't have the consciousness that you have eternal life. If
you would be complete, if you would know the blessing of eternal
life, this is what you must do. Go, sell what you have. Give
to the poor. You shall have treasure in heaven. Come, follow me. What did Jesus
offer him? He offered him Treasure in heaven
and his own companionship. And that's what he offered him.
He said, go, sell what you have. You will have treasure in heaven.
Come, follow me. Get rid of what you have. Give
it to the poor. Don't put it in long-term bearing
CDs, hoping eventually you may go back. No, no. Don't sign it
over in your wills. You give it right now. And then
you'll have treasure in heaven, follow me." What is the Lord
doing? He's seeing. Has this man been brought to
the place where he's really discovered the treasure? He comes as a man
who's got great ties to his present treasures. His morality, his
uprightness, his reputation, his influence, all these things.
And at the head of the list is the money and all that it can
give him, all that it has given him, all that it could continue
to give him. And the Lord Jesus is saying, you've come to me
and called me good master. I'm more than that. I'm God incarnate. I'm the king of grace and eternal
life is bound up in me. You want me? Have you seen in
me a treasure above the treasures that are there in your bank accounts,
above the treasures in your titles to land and possessions and property? If you have, you will with joy
go and sell all that you have. and having a treasure that cannot
be touched in heaven to come, and me as your companion now,
it'll be a no-brainer. But what happened to it? Look
at the passage. But when the young man heard
the saying, he went away. How? Sorrowful. Why? For he was
one that had great possessions. He still saw his treasure in
the things that he could touch and feel and fondle and turn
into cash and influence. He didn't see Christ as the treasure
hidden in the field for whom he ought joyfully to get rid
of all of his toys that he might have eternal life in Christ. And the text says he went away
Why? Because he didn't see the worth
of the treasure. And Jesus didn't run down the
road and say, excuse me, young man, you know, I was really going
for broke. I was hoping to get you both
saved and surrendered with one big whack of a soul. I missed
it. But look, if you're willing to
believe I'm the Son of God and came from heaven to die from
sinners, you'll be saved and go to heaven when you die. And hopefully
down the road, you'll learn to love me enough and you'll...
No, no, Jesus did not butcher his soul by that wretched teaching. Jesus wasn't playing games with
him. He said, what shall I do to have eternal life? And Jesus
is saying, eternal life is in me. I'm the treasure. Do you
see in me the treasure? Then get rid of your toys. Come,
follow me, and there will be eternal treasure in the heavens.
The kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure hid in the field. We go by Christ day after day. We go over Him, around Him, and
we see nothing beautiful. But when the Spirit of God, through
the Word of God, opens up the loveliness of Jesus, and the
fact that all the salvation we need and could desire is in Jesus,
then for joy, for joy of that discovery, we sell all that we
might have the field and the treasure that is in it. Now, having sought to open up
the basic facts of the parable, the central truth of the parable,
I want to close by making two crucial applications of the parable. The first is this. The parable
exposes as utterly false the notion that some of the blessings
of the salvation of Christ can be had without having Christ
Himself on His terms. This parable exposes as utterly
false the notion that some of the blessings of the salvation
of Christ, some of the things in the treasure box, can be possessed
without having Christ Himself on His terms. We can somehow
sneak up on the box in the field and grab a goody or two without
getting rid of the toys in our home that we might buy the field
in which the treasure is found. No, impossible. This takes all kinds of wretched
faces in our day, where people write books trying to show you
can take Jesus as Savior and have your sins forgiven and be
ready to die and go to heaven. while you have never bowed to
Christ as your Lord and as your Master. You can believe on the
Lord Jesus, but not be a disciple to the Lord Jesus. You can be
saved, but not fundamentally surrendered. You can be a true
Christian, but not a holy man or woman. That is all forms of
saying you can have some blessings that are in Christ without having
Christ Himself on His terms. There is no more wretched, destructive
lie than that lie, because it encases people in a false security. Yes, I believe Jesus, the Son
of God, came from heaven, died for sinners. I'm trusting in
what He did on the cross to take away my sins. My friend, you
have never seen any beauty or loveliness in Christ that's caused
you for joy to throw open the whole soul and being of who and
what you are. to embrace it, to be to you all
that he promises to be, to sinners who trust him and receive him
on his terms. You see how the parable exposes
this notion as false. The treasures in the field, the
man had to sell all to get the field, and he got the field on
the owner's terms, not his own. No evidence that he bargained,
No evidence that he was struggling. Well, I've got to give up my
boat. No, I found a treasure. Everything I have is expendable
for the sake of the treasure. My Bible says God has blessed
us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies. Where? In
Christ. All of God's salvation and all of its glorious facets
are stored up in Christ. Forgiveness, reconciliation,
justification, the gift of the Spirit, the promise of eternal
life, adoption. All of them are in Christ. And
Christ comes to us in the gospel as the treasure. And he says,
do you want me? If you want me on my terms, you
have everything that's in me. And what are his terms? Any man
come to me, hate not father, mother, brother, sister, yea,
in his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. Whosoever does
not take up his cross and follow after me cannot be my disciple.
How can you believe which seek glory one from another and seek
not the honor that comes from God only? Christ's terms are
that you've seen in Christ a loveliness, a beauty, a desirability. You have seen in Christ through
the preaching and teaching, reading of the Word of God, good books,
whatever means God is pleased to use. You've discovered Him
to be the treasure. and you haven't dickered with
him. Like Saul of Tarsus when he discovered the treasure. He
didn't pray a long prayer in that initial discovery. It just
was, who are you, Lord? I am Jesus. He says, what will
you have me to do? Saul of Tarsus, up till now,
has made the plan, set the agenda. From here on in, Lord Jesus,
I'm yours. I'm yours. I'm yours. Some of you kids, struggling,
am I saved? This is the real issue. This is the real issue. You deny nothing that you've
heard about Christ. But if you're honest, you'd have
to say, well, there's an awful lot I haven't tasted in this
world, and it still looks so attractive to me. It still looks
so desirable. I'm not sure. I'm not sure if
I want to come into my adult years never having known a rib-crushing
embrace from a young man and a passionate kiss on my lips,
and perhaps never to have it if God doesn't give it to me
in a marriage partner. You've not settled that. You
really think that you might miss something in Christ if you never
know what it is to have a rib-cracking, passionate embrace. You go right down the line. to
have this, to have that, to experience this, experience that. The kingdom
of heaven is like unto a treasure hid in the field which a man
found. And for joy thereof went, he goes, he sells, present tense
verbs to make it live before us. We see the man whistling
all the way as he disposes of his goods, comes with his bag
of money, whistling up to the owners, walk, You don't know anything about
it. And that's why you're so miserable. Your conscience is conditioned
not to be comfortable in Christ's worldliness, but you have not
discovered a beauty in Christ that has captivated you and makes
Him precious and makes the life of obedience a delight. You're
of all people most miserable. That's the problem with some
of you. And if you're honest, you'll say, Pastor, now I don't
know why God led you to take this for anybody else, but Lord,
that's my problem. And I plead with you, own it,
face it, that's the issue. You need to cry to God that He
would, by His Spirit, do what Paul says He does whenever He
brings on one in the kingdom. 2 Corinthians chapter 4 is another
passage that is an excellent commentary on this parable. Paul
says, if our gospel is veiled, it's veiled in them that are
lost. in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds
of them that believe not. And what does He blind them to?
Lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ should
shine upon them. The devil doesn't want a gospel
that radiates the beauty and the loveliness and the glory
of Christ to break upon your soul. And he says, for we preach
not ourselves, but Christ Jesus is Lord. and ourselves your servant
for Jesus' sake. For God who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness has shined in our hearts to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. Paul says it wasn't the light
in the Syrian sky that was the instrument of my conversion.
It was the light shed upon my darkened heart. And when the
light broke in, It illuminated the face of Jesus. And I've never
been the same. That's it. And that's what you
need. You need to cry to God that He
would, by His Spirit through the Word, make Christ the treasure,
discover Him in His beauty. Many years ago, I heard an Indonesian
preacher, and in his broken English, and I won't try to imitate his
broken English, was preaching on this theme out of the experience
of Abraham. And he said, God says go, and
heart don't want go. Heart don't want go. But when
I see him, heart go. His words came back to me in
my preparation at my desk yesterday. Heart don't want go. See him,
heart go. Heart go. This parable exposes
as utterly false the notion Some of the blessings of the salvation
of Christ can be had without having Christ on his terms, and
my second application is this. This parable exposes as utterly
false the notion that to possess Christ on his terms is to constine
oneself to a joyless life. This parable exposes as utterly
false the notion that to possess Christ on his terms is to consign
oneself to a joyless life. The passage is clear, and I confess,
and so often happens for those of us who preach the Word would
acknowledge this, there are things we pass over again and again
until we have to preach on a passage, and I never saw how pivotal is
this little phrase, and in His joy, for the joy thereof, apotes
caras autu, that is, from the joy of His He goes, he sells,
he buys. That's it. That's it. God does
not deliver us from our soul-damning idols to make us a bunch of sorrowful,
doleful, wretched creatures. He delivers us to bring us into
the joy that we were meant to know as creatures in fellowship
with the living God. The kingdom of God is not eating
and drinking, Paul says, but righteousness, peace, and what?
Joy in the Holy Ghost. I hope some of us who have been
in the way a while are a constant refutation of this lie of the
devil to you young people. You see your life before you,
and you see all the options, and you see the self-denial,
you see the strict terms of following Christ closely, in a world that
is hostile, and you see your parents, you hear their acknowledgment
of their struggles with sin, and the devil would love to come
along and say, is that what you want for your life? This joyless,
doer, struggle, wrestle existence? I hope some of us are a living
monument that that's a bunch of bunk. I hope you see in us,
amidst our struggles and our acknowledged wrestlings and the
rest, a joy and a vibrancy that you know is rooted in Christ
and in the things we have in Christ. And in your heart of
hearts, you know it ain't fake. You know it's real. It's yours
if you have the treasure. It's there in the field. Sell
all and buy it. There it is, available. The kingdom of heaven is like
like unto a treasure hidden in the field, when a man found and
hid, and in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys
that field." Isn't it interesting that the program that has knocked
the charts into all kinds of disarray is Regis' You Want to
Be a Millionaire. Isn't it amazing? It's amazed
people. And now all the other stations, not all of them, several
others have come up with imitations of it. What lies behind all this
obsession? Millions of people, night after
night, sit there watching, so you want to be a millionaire.
What lies behind that? It's the lie that the treasure's
in bucks, in dollars, in what dollars can procure. We've got
a nation that's bought the lie. That's why the lottery is so
popular. If I can hit the lottery, what's at the end of that lottery
hitting the right number? Is the pot of gold? No, my friend.
The treasure is not to be found on Regis' show or in the local
store that sells the lottery tickets. Christ is the treasure. Christ is the treasure. And all
that your soul will ever need to be right with God now and
to be filled with all that you can handle now and to look forward
that the best is yet to come. It's in Christ. Oh, my friend,
go to Him. Go to Him. Go to Him. Cry that God will enable you
to see that in Christ are hidden all the treasures, Paul says,
of wisdom, of knowledge, of pardon, forgiveness, fulfillment, direction,
purpose. Name it. It's in Him. I come around full circle to
where I began. The hidden treasure, what is
it? And have you acquired it? Have you acquired it? No one
can acquire it for you, kids. Mom and Dad can't. In their prayers,
they would, but they can't. You must acquire it. You personally
must acquire it. Have you acquired it? If not,
why not? And if not, when? Behold now
is the day of salvation. Today, if you hear His voice,
harden not your heart. Let us pray. Our Father, how we thank You
for Your Word. We thank You for our Lord Jesus,
the Master Teacher. We thank You that in Him there
is life and salvation, pardon, acceptance, the promise of eternal
life, the gift of the Spirit, O Lord, how we thank you for
the treasures that are in him and that many of us sitting here
today by your grace have found that treasure and for joy thereof
have dispensed with everything necessary that we might have
that treasure. Forgive us that we so quickly
and so easily look back over our shoulder thinking that just
perhaps There is some joy to be found in something long ago
repudiated as any hope of giving us true satisfaction. Forgive
our folly. O God, help us that we may retain
a single-hearted, white-hot devotion to your Son and an unswerving
trust in Him. Be gracious to those who have
never discovered the treasure. May the Spirit of God reveal
it to them this day. and may they find joy in acquiring
it. Hear us, we pray, in Jesus' name. Amen.