I invite your attention back
to Matthew chapter 13. The title of my message this
morning is Extreme Value. Extreme Value. B.B. Caldwell, an old preacher that
died many years ago, said one time about this book, about the
Bible, if you can't find yourself in this book, this is not your
book. And what he was saying was that
this book is a book to believers, And they should take it personally.
This is a word from God for His people. And this is what we have
from God. After the book of Malachi, God
did not speak for 400 years. There was silence from heaven
during that time. The Pharisees kept hold of the
book. copied it down, inscribed it,
and we have it because of their work today. Later they became
convinced that it was their book and nobody else should have it.
And they were the sole interpreters of it. And our Lord said, your
problem with you fellas is you're of the devil and not of God. But the longer I read here, the
longer I've looked at this book, the more I do take it personally. Because it is written to the
children of God. This is one of the kingdom parables. The thing to understand about
the kingdom parables is that this world is God's world. Men may hold little sections
of it and put their name on it and call it theirs, but they're
not going to keep it for long. As soon as they're gone, somebody
else is going to get it. Maybe their wonderful, beloved
children. And if they were to wake from the grave three days
later and come back and ask for it back, the children wouldn't
give it back to them. What you have, you can't take
with you. Unless what you have is eternal. Everything else is
going to stay behind. This is God's world. He runs
it. He rules it. Because He's God. Because He's God. This passage is simple and sweet. It's a parable, a comparative
story. It teaches one thing. And the
one thing it teaches ultimately is this is God's kingdom. And
this is how things are done in His world. In His world. This may be applied to Christ.
If we read the words, it says, again, the King of Heaven is
like a merchant man seeking goodly pearls, who when he had found
one pearl of great price, went and sold all he had and bought
it. This may be applied to Christ,
seeking the elect, but the language is not necessarily agreeable
with that. It is true that our Lord seeks His elect, seeks His
sheep until He finds them, because He's the Good Shepherd. And a
good shepherd knoweth his sheep, and calleth his sheep by name.
It is also true that He gave up all in order to redeem them
from sin. We cannot imagine what it was
that the Lord set aside when He laid aside the ever-present
praise of angels, all His glory, and came down to this earth to
be found in the fashion of a man and become even obedient to the
death of the cross. But the Word of God says, For
ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he
was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through
his poverty might be made rich. It is also true that the elect
are called God's jewels. The Lord speaks in Malachi of
making up his jewels. So this pearl may fall into that
category that's being spoken of here. Secondly, we must say that some of the
language does not represent Christ at all. He's represented as a
merchant, or this person is a merchant.
And to suggest buying and selling, Christ came only to buy, and
that by redemption, and that through His blood death on Calvary's
tree. Redemption never means selling.
In fact, the third word that's employed in redemption, luatro,
means never to put on the marketplace again. The first word is agorazo,
which we get a word agora from, the marketplace. It means to
go to the marketplace to buy. And the marketplace is the slave
market, because we are slaves to sin. Ec agorazo, which means
to go to the marketplace and buy and take out of the marketplace,
having purchased it. And luatro means never to ever
put it on sale again, to keep it as a personal possession. This merchant is seeking goodly
pearls, and that does not line up with what the elect are by
nature, or the proclamation of why Jesus Christ came into this
world. Jesus Christ did not come to find goodly pearls. He came
to find sinners. Paul said, This is a faithful
saying worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into this
world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. And I know every
sinner who has been saved by grace feels that way about themselves,
or at least, trying to be humble, say they feel that way about
themselves. But remember, this book is inspired by the Holy
Spirit. All Scripture is given from the inspiration of God and
is prompt for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction that
the man of God might be truly furnished unto all good works.
The Holy Spirit inspired Paul to write that he was the chief
of sinners. Why? Because if the Lord could
save the chief, he won't have any problem with you, because
you ain't the chief. This parable rather, I believe,
suggests the awakened sinner. The sinner who has been moved
upon by God in prevenient grace. This sinner who has an inward
longing and who's looking for something better than what he
has. Now how it is that the Lord causes
a man to hunger for righteousness save that he hears the gospel,
no one is really privy to. It's really kind of a personal
thing between God and His people. The providence that brings him
to that place, the intricate machinations of sovereign mercy
that makes a man dissatisfied with what he has and causes him
to long for more, that's a mystery. That's really a mystery. I pondered this myself over these
years, recounting the years I spent in useless religion and then
beginning to grow weary of it and longing for something genuine,
something different, something more, something better than what
I had because I knew what I had didn't do anything for me and
certainly didn't honor God. And I don't know when it happened
or what intrigued me, but I know that it was God by the fact that
He brought me to Christ. Scripture says, as it is written,
they shall all be taught of God. From Isaiah 54, verse 13, Christ
saying in John 6, verse 45, everyone therefore that hath learned of
the Father, by the Father, comes to Jesus Christ. everyone whom
God teaches. The word there is didactos. We've
got almost an ex-teacher, but we've got a couple ex-teachers
here. Maybe you young people think about teaching when you
go to leave the college level. I don't know. We've got teachers. There's another one. There's
another one. We've got all kinds of teachers in here. The word
didactos means to affect the brain. Brainwash. That's what it means when God
tells you of Christ, teaches you of Christ, His Son. You're
brainwashed and you never get over it. You never get over it. But when I found or was found
of Christ, I realized that it was He whom I longed for. He
was all I would ever need or ever want. The entire thing was
a miracle of grace and has left me in awe for many years. I still
am in awe of that fact. This man here is called the seeker
and the seeker is called the merchant. What's his business? His business is the business
of life. The business of life for the highest and noblest to
the basis of the criminal element is actually very singular. Men
say they have different goals, but I've been at their bedsides
while they're dying, both poor and rich, both moral and immoral. I've been by their bedsides and
held their hands and listened to them talk as they were passing
off this world. And I find that they're very
singular in their thinking. Everybody wants something better
after this life is done. I don't believe men fear death.
I believe they fear what follows death. The judgment. Now, they may not take account
of what they do so much in the journey, but as they approach
that final truth, they assess their lives as to positive and
negative deeds. A kind of asset sheet, a profit
and loss statement, if you will. Of course, because our hearts
are deceitful and desperately wicked and we can't know them,
the profit column is always more weighty than the loss column.
I found that to be true. Everyone knows deep down in his
soul, everybody here and every person who walks the face of
the earth, even those who deny God altogether, I've held the
hands of a few of them too, know that there is a day of reckoning. That's as natural to human beings
as breath. And in this business, men always
seek to better themselves. to better their situation, to
find a pearl and sell it and find a better pearl. They're
always buying and selling, looking for the better deal, moving on
up in this world, seeking the deal that will better their estate
and assure them, hopefully, of some sense of eternal happiness
when they depart this world. But be reminded, this is not
man's playing field here. Men are at play in the field
of the Lord. It is the Lord's kingdom. And though men may spend
their life and their energy keeping score unbeknownst to them, the
score has long been settled on a lonely wooden tower outside
Jerusalem some 2,000 years ago. And listen to me, nothing you do have done, can
do, or will do, can never change or affect the outcome of what
took place on Calvary. Our Lord said, it is finished. That word is teleo. is perfect. It is finished. And that simply meant that there
was nothing more to be done by you or by anyone else. You say,
well, I got to believe. Well, go ahead. Have at it. Believe all you want to. You can't believe and neither
can I unless God gives us faith. And if God gives us faith, we
can't do anything but believe. This merchant is God's choice
merchant. He is seeking goodly pearls and
his steps are ordered by the Lord and he will find a pearl
of such worth that nothing else will matter to him after that
discovery. Nothing. Along the way, the Lord
in His kind providence has educated this merchant He will know the
value of what he finds when he finds it. The glory of it will
so supersede all other treasures that his merchant days will be
over. His seeking days will be over.
They will end until the end of days. That pearl will be the
only thing he treasures in this life. He will say with David,
Whom have I in heaven but thee? And whom on earth do I desire
but thee? This is all my salvation and all my desire. Oh, get some
hand signals from Dave over here to know what that was. The pearl of great price. Value
is an interesting thing. There are many aspects to assessing
value. About as many as there are things
to assess. Value can increase if perchance
something that is yours cannot be found. You've lost it. It may not be worth anything,
but it suddenly becomes of great value, because you can't find
it. So a thing that is lost of your
possession takes on value. You can act goofy when things
like, well this morning, this little tie clasp that I always
put on so my tie won't flip back and forth. When I get ready to get dressed for Sunday morning,
I lay out my clothes on the bed like I had a ballet or something,
I guess, and I put out my watches, my rings, and all that stuff.
Well, I put on my tie, and I went to look for this thing, and I
couldn't find it. And I went and I said, Debbie,
have you seen that little tie thing? I had it laying on the
bed this morning. Well, no, she gets up, because she's always
good at helping me find stuff. And we went under there, and
I looked under the bed, and Debbie looked under the bed, and I said,
darn, and there it was in my pocket. right in my pocket. I felt so much better. But while
it was lost, it was worth what it was worth. But it was worth
more to me when it was lost because I couldn't find it. So that's
a certain value there. A thing increases in value the
longer it is outside your reach. A thing may not be of any value
at all, but being unable to find it increases its value exponentially.
I'm 66 years old. When I was two, yeah, and I remember
it, my aunt Rebecca sent me a ring from Chile. She was a missionary
there. A little ring. She sent all of
us children, mama's children, a little ring. It was just me
and Billy at the time. And mom told her, don't touch that ring.
Of course, she also said, don't stick your hands in the butter.
That didn't work either, but don't touch that ring. And you
know, that made me want to touch that ring really bad. The law
enticed me to see it. And one day when I was two years
old, I went in there in Mama's room and I climbed up on Daddy's
army trunk and I looked in Mama's jewelry box and there was that
ring. And I put it on my finger and it was way too big for me.
I was two. Went outside and we had a sawdust pile. My granddaddy
was a carpenter and had a shop there and he had a pile of sawdust.
And I forgot all about the ring and started playing with the
sawdust. And that night, sometime I realized I'd lost the ring. I still think about that ring.
I'm 66 years old. That was 64 years ago. What about
it? What's with it? It has a value.
Because I can't put my hand on it. My daddy had a little steel,
all steel case knife. Case knife. used to trim his
fingernails and clean up under his fingernails and do his little
whittling and whatever he did. I loved that thing. One day I
decided, because he always left it right on top of his dresser,
I was going to play with it. I was about seven, eight years
old then. So I took it out and played with it. Went down and
cut some rabbit tobacco so I could put it in my corn carb pipe and
chew and run around in the weeds and climb trees and when I got
back home the knife was gone. Boy, I'd really tell a daddy
about that. I still think about that knife.
Why? Because it being lost gave it
value. Gave it value. Also, value can be a thing of
monopolization or a controlled value. Many of you ladies have
diamonds on your hands, on your necks. Marilyn Monroe said diamonds
are a girl's best friend. Diamonds are almost as plentiful
as raindrops. Did you know that? Yet they are touted as precious
stones. There are warehouses all over
Europe with tons and tons, literally tons and tons of diamonds. But there is a consortium of
diamond merchants who control the distribution of all the diamonds
in the world and therefore control the value of the diamonds in
the world. They release a few here and there
and thus are able to present them as rare and valuable and
name whatever price they want to have for it. They name the
value, they set the value. If they were all released today,
That thing, that bobble you have on your neck or on your earrings
or on your finger wouldn't be worth a nickel if all the diamonds
were released today. That's men establishing value
under a controlled situation. I was thinking about that. I
was thinking about religion. There are but two religions in
the world. There is the true and there is
the false. There is the darkness and there
is the light. The true has but one way to God, and that's by
grace alone, through Christ alone, according to the Scriptures alone,
by the Spirit alone. And that eliminates all possible
confusion, doesn't it? I know men say, well, there's
got to be more than that. Well, why do you want to be confused about
that? How gracious is God just to give you one way? You can't
be wrong about this. One way. Well, I want another.
That's your problem. There's just one way, by grace
alone. But the other is the religion
of works, or personal merit, or free will, or veritable cornucopia
of human notion and opinion. Tons of religions, but they're
just one religion. They're a religion that believes
you can reach an acceptable state with God by your own personal
merit. All other religions, save for
the religion of God's true gospel, have a way whereby men can reach
an acceptable state in order to be accepted by God. All other
religions say one. The one true religion says you
can't do anything, you don't do anything, you never will be
able to do anything, and salvation has nothing to do with your character
or your conduct. It has to do with God freely
bestowing unmerited favor on you. False religion is like that sack
of diamonds. The value is controlled by those
merchants who make merchandise of men's souls. The value is
found in their ability to assess and meet the needs and pleasure
centers of the flesh. They do this by denominational
distinctions that appeal to sentiments, visual comeliness, competition,
or personal ego, or ethereal trance-like devotion. They're
all over the place, but all of them are saying the same thing.
There's not a whole lot of difference between fundamentalism and Islam.
They both believe they can get to God by their own personal
merit. There ain't but one true religion. And that religion says you can't
get to God at all. He got to come get you. He got
to come find you. Now you'll say you found Him
and you did. because he sought you out. Those false religions are worthless
diamonds. They take on a great value to
men according to what they're determined to be valuable. To some, it's excitement. There's a religion for that.
For some, it's sentimentalism. There's one for that. For some,
it's stern Puritanism. There's a religion for that.
You can find what you want if you want. If you don't want Christ,
I guarantee you can find what you want because they're all
out there. They're all out there. But they're like the diamonds.
They really don't have any value, except the value that the controllers
of those religions put on them. Though this merchant's business
was in the realm of goodly pearls, the pearls that were of some
value He is about to forget all the other pearls. The kingdom of heaven is like
unto a merchant seeking goodly pearls, who when he had found
one pearl of great price, he forgets about all the rest
of the pearls. When I was in religion, the Lord
made me begin to question what I was hearing. I became willing to leave the
pearl that I had found for a better pearl. I chose one of theological
value to me, but because I found it on my own, I could not help
taking some credit for finding it, and spent many years perfecting
the art of appearing sincere. It's the hardest thing to do,
fake sincerity, but you can do it, and religion does. The doctrine was correct, but
without any true interest in Christ, And I used the doctrine
to browbeat and pummel anyone who disagreed with me, even my
sweet wife. Had to duck a Bible one time
I threw at her. My forte was to point out sin, hypocrisy,
want of obedience and all to make a fair show in the flesh
and make me feel superior to those to whom I taught and preached. I set myself up as a moral compass
for people. And I can guarantee the words
of Christ are true. Scarcely will one die for a righteous
man. Nobody, nobody would be around
me. And it worked for a while until
the lines of providence drawn from me began to narrow and I
found that all I was was just me. I had religion without Christ. Religion without Christ. started more wars than anything
on the face of the earth. Christianity without Christ is
an evil force. It's an evil force. I just mean,
for some reason I began to hunger for a better pearl. God's mercy did not allow me
to find a replacement. He brought me to a meeting one
night and he gave me ears to hear and eyes to see. What I
saw was his son in the glory of his accomplishment on Calvary
Street. That night I was no longer a merchant seeking goodly pearls.
I was no longer a merchant at all. I had found the pearl of
great price. I found what true value was.
True value isn't a thing that's rare. and a thing that's glory
is all tied up in itself. That's the pearl of great price.
I found that value has to do with singularity and uniqueness,
intrinsically valuable in itself. Christ's value has nothing to
do with merchandising or advertising or the value placed on Him by
men who control His commodity, because they don't. Jesus Christ
is not valuable to lost men, but He's valuable to those seeking
goodly pearl. He is not valuable because He's
lost and found. Christ ain't lost. I remember
one time back in my flyer child days, I came home in an old pair
of faded corduroys and an old army shirt I'd bought at the
Salvation Army store. I walked in, and I was in the
service at this time, but this was during the 60s. I walked
in and I told my dad, I said, I found God. He said, well, I
didn't know He was lost. Where'd you find Him? Where'd
you find Him? He's not valuable because he
was lost. His value is that he's the only
one of his kind. The only one. He's the only seed
of a woman ever born on this planet. What's the significance of that?
He in his birth did not carry the taint of Adam's federal headship. Adam was not his father, so he
was not born in sin. God was his father, so he had
no sin. Unique. One human being who is
fully God and fully man. So much God that is as if he
were not man, so much man that is as if he were not God. He's without sin. We can't imagine. We can't even imagine that. Because
we have to use a sinful brain to think about it. And so we
already screwed up before we started. He came to die in the
room instead of His people to die. He came to save His people
from their sin. That's why they named Him Jesus.
Call His name Jesus, Savior. For He shall save, shall save
His people from their sin. And yet He knew no sin. He came to do what no other could
do. Give a perfect, spotless sacrifice to God and propitiate
or appease God for the sins of the elect. He did that. Nobody else can do that. My death
ain't going to accomplish anything. My death will be a final shout
and proclamation that my will wasn't such a big deal after
all. Because I guarantee you when
I'm starting to die, I'm wanting to live more. And I'll have a
will to live, but it ain't going to do no good. I'm going to die
anyway. accomplished death. That's the
language used when Elijah and Moses came back to the Mount
of Transfiguration representing the law of the prophets who all
gave witness of Christ. They spake with Him of the death
that He should accomplish at Jerusalem. That death was an
accomplishment for Him. Why? Because He's life. I'm already
dead in trespasses and sin. I'm already dying since I drew
my first breath. And it won't be long before I'm
gone out of this world. But for Jesus Christ, who is
God, to die, that's an accomplishment. And He had to do it voluntarily.
You didn't kill Him. I didn't kill Him. We wanted
to kill Him. We wanted Him out of our life
and out of our business for good. I know that people always talk
about saying nice things like they like Jesus, but I'll tell
you what, I know that's not true about me or you or anybody else.
Because the one time God allowed us to touch Him, one time, we
took Him, and we beat Him, and we plucked off His beard, and
we punched Him, and we cleared our throat and spat in His face. And we planted a crown of thorns
and pressed it down on His skull and nailed Him to a cross. That's
what men think of God. And God didn't kill His Son on Calvary
Street. In those three hours of darkness, God punished His
Son for our sins. But you see, punishment never
satisfies God. It can't. Punishment doesn't
answer that situation for sin. God poured out His wrath upon
His Son in punishment for our sin in those three hours of darkness
and it was so horrible He didn't let anybody see. But that didn't put away your
sin. His physical suffering didn't put away your sin. His sufferings
in those three hours of darkness under the hand of God didn't
put away your sin. They were punishment. And they were, because
of the person of this pearl of great value, enough of value
that God was satisfied with the punishment. But punishment never
satisfies God because all we have to do is look at hell and
it is eternal. Eternal punishment. Why? Because
God's never satisfied with it. But then, In that great transaction between
God the Father and God the Son, Jesus Christ paid the one debt
that we all owe. He kept the law, the one way
that the law could be kept. He died. You're going to keep
the law. So am I. We're going to die. And he put away the sins of his
people. And the metaphorical language is phenomenal in Scripture.
He buried them at the bottom of the sea. He cast them behind
God's back. He separated us from them as
far as the east is from the west. Because he offered a spotless
sacrifice to God and propitiated God for the sins of the elect.
He did it. That was an accomplishment. We
don't worship a namby-pamby, nobody who'd give it his best
shot but couldn't get it done. We don't worship somebody who
wants to do something but can't. Listen, if God wants to do something,
it's going to get done. Because He does all His pleasure,
Scripture says. He's God. Why would we attribute
these kind of attributes to God? These are our attributes. We're
the people who can't get anything done. Not God. He is the singular success story
in all of humanity through all the ages, the only one. Now we
may have measured success in this world, but we can't take
with us what we've garnered in. But he did. He took it with him. He bought it,
paid for it, possessed it, and carried it away. Everyone he bought with his death
he arose to possess, and they are all seated, according to
Ephesians chapter 2, in heavenly places with him." If you're a
child of God, you're there now too. You're here and there. You
say, well, that doesn't make any sense. I don't care. It's
what God says. Our Lord said to Nicodemus, the
one that's talking to you now is in heaven. John chapter 3. But God possesses what He has
paid for. I think you probably do too,
don't you? Somebody buys a car, pays cash
for it, drives it off the lot. I stop them at the end of the
driveway and say, wait a minute. That's not really your car unless
I believe it's your car. How stupid is that? It's their car. They bought it. They paid for it, they possessed
it. God bought us according to Acts 28. When Paul was talking
to the Ephesian elders about leaving them and what they should
do, he says, take oversight of the house of God, which God has
purchased with His own blood. And what God has purchased, He
possesses. We celebrate in preaching of
the gospel the glorious, accomplished work of Christ on Calvary Street.
His travail never knew a miscarriage or a stillborn. He is of great,
even inestimable value. Scripture says, To you who believe,
therefore, He is precious. Precious. You know what that
word precious means in the original? Of great honor and value. Found the pearl of great price.
Not interested in anything else. When the merchant found this
pearl a great price, he sold all he had and purchased it.
Now we know we don't purchase Christ, but the sentiment is
true. This has to do with how Christ
is valued. If you find Him, you won't look
for nothing else. This man had to have this pearl.
He had to have it. because they can't find a sinner,
a real one. They have to invent ways to get
people to feel bad about themselves and then convince them and try
to push Christ down their throat and get them down some aisle
to shake their hand and pat themselves on the back for the good things
they've done. But I say to you, if you're a sinner and you hear
the gospel, I'm just going to get out of your way, because
you're going to get to Christ. Save me or I perish. I must have
Him or I will die. Though He slay me, I will serve
Him. This is what this man felt. I've
got to have this pearl. This is all anything that means
to me. He said he sold all he had and bought it. It meant life
meant nothing without this prize. without this price. So it is
with every one of the elect when they find Christ, they do not
sell all they have, but they realize that all they have is
nothing without Him. And they realize that all they
have actually belongs to Him. And they belong to Him also.
They realize it is themselves that have been bought with a
price and all they are and have belonged to Him. One man told
a story relating to this Said when this man was going shopping
for pearls, he went into a gym store and he saw this gem, this
pearl. And he said, boy, that sure is
beautiful. I'd like to have that. And the shop owner says, well,
you can have it. He said, well, how much would
it cost? He says, everything you got. Everything you have. He said, well, Let me go get
in my car, and I'll go to the bank." He said, that's going
to cost you that car. He said, well, I've got a wife
and family. He said, that'll cost you your
wife and your family. I've got a house. It'll cost you a house.
It's going to cost you everything. But the guy had to have the pearl.
So he turned over everything to this man. And then this man
said, OK, it's mine, right? He gave it back to the man. He
said, now this is my stuff you're using. He said, so if one of your brethren
need a ride in my car, you won't mind taking him, will you? If
he needs a place to stay in my house, you won't turn him away,
will you? It's not your house after all. What's it going to
cost you? Everything. And you get it all
back. Everything. The believer parrots
the words of Philip. He said, Philip, findeth Nathanael,
and said unto him, We have found him. We have found him of whom
Moses and the law and the prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth,
son of Joseph. And this is how it works in God's
kingdom. This is how it works. You're
one of His, He'll make you hungry and thirsty. He'll make you want
something that you can't even imagine. If you want something
better, then He'll give you the best. He'll give you the best. If you're a sinner seeking mercy,
I've got good news for you. Look to Christ. When you do, you'll have need
of nothing else. Father, bless us to understand
and pray in Christ's name. Amen.