WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.000 We are doing a little summer series in the mornings on some of the parables of Jesus, 00:00:07.000 --> 00:00:12.419 and we have a couple parables before us this morning. Parables are very simple stories 00:00:12.419 --> 00:00:18.120 in the Gospels, and Jesus, he gave a good many parables. He took very, very ordinary 00:00:18.120 --> 00:00:24.839 circumstances of life in the Greco-Roman Jewish cultures that he lived in, oftentimes things 00:00:24.839 --> 00:00:30.280 like agricultural settings, very normal, ordinary circumstances, and he would tell simple stories 00:00:30.280 --> 00:00:37.320 about them in order to give a cosmic level lesson. One of the things to say at the outset, 00:00:37.320 --> 00:00:42.519 we mentioned this briefly last week, but it's just to note that Jesus gave us stories. 00:00:42.519 --> 00:00:46.920 God gave us stories. When you flip through the Bible, one of the things you notice overwhelmingly 00:00:46.920 --> 00:00:52.200 is that most of the biblical text is narrative, it's story. And when you read through the 00:00:52.200 --> 00:00:57.200 Gospels, Jesus wanted to communicate the most important idea of his coming, the Kingdom 00:00:57.200 --> 00:01:01.560 of Heaven through story. And I think one of the reasons for that, as we mentioned last 00:01:01.560 --> 00:01:07.600 week, is that the Kingdom of Heaven, the Kingdom of God has so many dimensions, so many aspects 00:01:07.600 --> 00:01:14.040 to it, so much depth that you really need story to be able to convey it. Stories do 00:01:14.040 --> 00:01:21.320 something that lists of facts cannot do. So if you read a list of facts, probably your 00:01:21.319 --> 00:01:27.079 emotions will not be stirred. Probably your will will not be pricked. Probably your desires 00:01:27.079 --> 00:01:34.719 will not be changed. But stories, narratives can do that. They take truth and engage the 00:01:34.719 --> 00:01:40.199 whole of the soul, every bit of who you are. And that's the power of stories. I think that's 00:01:40.199 --> 00:01:46.959 why Jesus communicated to us through parables, and he gave them to us 2,000 years ago, and 00:01:46.959 --> 00:01:52.479 I think he wants us to sit with them. So for a couple thousand years now, the church has 00:01:52.479 --> 00:01:57.199 been sitting with these parables and just letting them soak over us, and they're here 00:01:57.199 --> 00:02:04.319 to change us. Will you come today and be changed by these parables? That's what they're here 00:02:04.319 --> 00:02:10.199 for. So let's do that. Let's think about that. We have here two little stories. One about 00:02:10.199 --> 00:02:15.719 a man who finds treasure in a field while he's farming. Another little story about a 00:02:15.719 --> 00:02:24.639 merchant who goes and buys a great pearl. Very short, very simple, but profound. So let's 00:02:24.639 --> 00:02:31.199 think about this. First, the fact of the treasure in the pearl, the identity of the treasure 00:02:31.199 --> 00:02:37.240 in the pearl, and then finally finding and seeking the treasure in the pearl. Okay, so 00:02:37.240 --> 00:02:45.079 first, the fact, the reality that there is a treasure, there is a pearl. The first parable 00:02:45.080 --> 00:02:49.360 we learn about this man who is farming, and he's working in a field. He doesn't own the 00:02:49.360 --> 00:02:56.840 field, and he finds treasure buried somewhere in this field. And the simple thing that we 00:02:56.840 --> 00:03:02.480 learn here is that this guy found treasure. Finding treasure seems, I think, when I first 00:03:02.480 --> 00:03:08.360 read this, a little bit distant from our current environment and culture. I can't imagine a 00:03:08.360 --> 00:03:14.040 situation in which I would be messing around in life and find treasure. But it's what we 00:03:14.039 --> 00:03:18.120 all dream of, right? It's what every child longs to do in the back garden is to find 00:03:18.120 --> 00:03:22.359 treasure. But that's exactly what happens here. And at first you think, is this sort 00:03:22.359 --> 00:03:28.359 of a mythological legendary rendering of treasure finding? You know, Robert Louis Stevenson 00:03:28.359 --> 00:03:34.879 created the pirate genre, our Veriona Edinburgh author in the 19th century. And we have pirates 00:03:34.879 --> 00:03:39.280 of the Caribbean and all these types of stories today because of Robert Louis Stevenson and 00:03:39.280 --> 00:03:44.280 Treasure Island. And so when I read about finding treasure, I think Treasure Island, 00:03:44.280 --> 00:03:50.719 things like that. But actually, finding treasure was somewhat common in the first century, 00:03:50.719 --> 00:03:58.280 in the ancient world. And the reason for that is because there are no banks. So if you've 00:03:58.280 --> 00:04:04.039 got currency, if you've got gold, if you've got silver, if you've got gemstones, which 00:04:04.039 --> 00:04:09.479 were the most common precious item to have in the first century, you can't take it to 00:04:09.479 --> 00:04:13.639 RBS. You know, you can't go anywhere like that to the Bank of England or wherever and 00:04:13.639 --> 00:04:19.719 deposit. Nobody can hold it for you. You have to hold it. And it's very precious and very 00:04:19.719 --> 00:04:24.039 valuable. And so you would either bury it underneath your home or you would hide it 00:04:24.039 --> 00:04:29.680 in your home or you would go out to the North Field and find grandfather's great oak tree 00:04:29.680 --> 00:04:34.240 that he planted a century ago and you would walk 20 paces to the left and you would bury 00:04:34.240 --> 00:04:41.800 your treasure. Right? And that was a normal thing. And in fact, I found recently a book 00:04:41.800 --> 00:04:48.319 this week, prepping for this, I found a book published in 1933 by a man named G.F. Hill. 00:04:48.319 --> 00:04:51.980 He was an Oxbridge guy. I can't remember. Oxford or Cambridge one. And he wrote this 00:04:51.980 --> 00:04:57.639 book called Treasure Trove, The Law and Practice of Finding Treasure and Antiquity. It's a 00:04:57.639 --> 00:05:02.159 study of Roman and Jewish laws concerning the finding of treasure. So there were Roman 00:05:02.159 --> 00:05:06.599 and Jewish laws concerning the finding of treasure. This was a normal thing. This actually 00:05:06.599 --> 00:05:12.759 happened. It happened most commonly. A couple situations the commentators talk about. If 00:05:12.759 --> 00:05:18.399 you were very, very normal, your little town, your little village, your community would 00:05:18.399 --> 00:05:25.079 probably in your lifetime be overrun by an enemy. And you know, when the orcs are coming, 00:05:25.079 --> 00:05:29.479 you've got to get out of the city. And what you do is you bury all your goods and you 00:05:29.479 --> 00:05:34.479 go and you hope that you can come back. But quite often you can't. And maybe a generation 00:05:34.479 --> 00:05:42.039 later, a farmhand finds what you buried when you had to flee. Or maybe you're a pearl merchant 00:05:42.039 --> 00:05:46.919 and you travel all the time. You have to go to the sea to get pearls and come back. And 00:05:46.919 --> 00:05:50.759 it's very probably when you're living in the first century without the greatness of contemporary 00:05:50.759 --> 00:05:56.079 medicine that at some point you're not coming back. And so you would bury your treasure, 00:05:56.079 --> 00:06:02.199 your goods. And what happens here is that there's a farmhand. This man is middle class 00:06:02.199 --> 00:06:08.399 or poor. He does not own the farm. We learned that in the parable. And he finds treasure 00:06:08.399 --> 00:06:16.279 while he's tilling the field. And we learn here that he goes and sells all of his possessions. 00:06:16.279 --> 00:06:24.119 He totally liquidates everything he has just to purchase the field. Why? Because GFL's 00:06:24.119 --> 00:06:30.639 little book on Roman and Jewish laws of treasure helps us understand that the only way the 00:06:30.639 --> 00:06:36.199 treasure is yours is if you actually own the property. So if you're the farmhand and you 00:06:36.199 --> 00:06:43.000 find treasure, the man you work for owns that treasure unless you go and you sell everything 00:06:43.000 --> 00:06:47.800 you have and you buy the field. So that's what happens in the first parable. In the 00:06:47.800 --> 00:06:53.639 second parable, which is making the same exact point, so we'll connect these two, the pearl 00:06:53.639 --> 00:06:58.879 merchant. He's a salesman. And normally how this works is let's say he's a pearl merchant 00:06:58.879 --> 00:07:05.639 in the interior of Israel, of Palestine, of the area of Palestine. He has to travel to 00:07:05.639 --> 00:07:11.560 the sea to where the fishermen are, to the Mediterranean. And he goes and he goes to 00:07:11.560 --> 00:07:16.319 the market of the fishermen and he purchases pearls from them, takes them back into the 00:07:16.319 --> 00:07:21.780 interior of the country, takes them to a very elite market because pearls are extremely 00:07:21.780 --> 00:07:28.399 precious in the first century and sells them at a high price. And so pearls, gemstones, 00:07:28.399 --> 00:07:33.560 all sorts of stones in the first century were the most valuable things you could possess. 00:07:33.560 --> 00:07:38.759 There's a, I don't know if this is myth or fact, but there's the story of Cleopatra owning 00:07:38.759 --> 00:07:45.240 a pearl that was so valuable, she said she would give everything to possess it. And scholars 00:07:45.240 --> 00:07:51.120 will talk about Cleopatra's pearl, valuating at four billion pounds in modern money in 00:07:51.120 --> 00:07:56.519 terms of what it would purchase in that time. Pearls were very precious, very elite. This 00:07:56.519 --> 00:08:02.519 man finds a pearl and he's a merchant. And so it's quite nuanced parable because what 00:08:02.519 --> 00:08:07.839 do you expect? He's going to go sell that pearl. You know, he's going to acquire it 00:08:07.839 --> 00:08:13.519 so that he can sell it, mark it up at 200%, how much is jewelry marked up? I don't know, 00:08:13.519 --> 00:08:17.719 a lot, I'm sure. And he's going to go to the market, he's going to sell it at a huge markup 00:08:17.719 --> 00:08:21.879 and make an enormous amount of money. And instead, what he does is he liquidates his 00:08:21.879 --> 00:08:30.479 life. He sells everything he has. He gives his business away just to acquire the funds 00:08:30.479 --> 00:08:35.839 to possess the pearl. Right? So in the first instance, the man gives everything he has 00:08:35.840 --> 00:08:41.639 away, liquidates his life, turns his life upside down so he can buy the fields not for 00:08:41.639 --> 00:08:45.720 the sake of the property, not because he wants the field, but because he wants the treasure. 00:08:45.720 --> 00:08:50.120 In the second instance, the pearl merchant liquidates his whole life, not so he can go 00:08:50.120 --> 00:08:55.639 make a ton more money at the market, but so he can just have this thing. He can possess 00:08:55.639 --> 00:09:00.840 it. What's the point? I think the commentators will talk, I mentioned this last week, about 00:09:00.840 --> 00:09:06.080 one point parables, two point parables, three point parables. I think this is a one point 00:09:06.080 --> 00:09:11.399 parable. And the point of this one point parable is this, that there is a treasure available 00:09:11.399 --> 00:09:19.240 to you that is so valuable, it's worth giving everything away for. There is a treasure available 00:09:19.240 --> 00:09:25.200 in this life that is so precious, it is worth completely reordering your entire life to 00:09:25.200 --> 00:09:33.400 get it. And this is, it's extreme, total liquidation in order to possess the treasure 00:09:33.400 --> 00:09:37.560 and the pearl. And you say, you know, when they find the treasure, when they find the 00:09:37.560 --> 00:09:44.480 pearl, it's not that the treasure, the pearl just changes a little bit of their lives. 00:09:44.480 --> 00:09:48.320 It's not that they say, you know, I really need to become a better person. That's what 00:09:48.320 --> 00:09:53.520 the treasure calls me to do. I need to become a better person. I need to be more productive. 00:09:53.519 --> 00:09:59.639 No, when the treasure and the pearl is found, it's a complete reordering, flipping everything 00:09:59.639 --> 00:10:04.720 upside down. There is something so valuable in this life, a real treasure that it is worth 00:10:04.720 --> 00:10:10.159 giving everything away in order to possess it. That's the point of the parable. Now, 00:10:10.159 --> 00:10:18.279 the question's obvious. Secondly, what is that treasure? What is the pearl? We know 00:10:18.279 --> 00:10:23.839 where Jesus is saying here, there is a treasure so valuable, it's worth giving your life away 00:10:23.839 --> 00:10:29.759 for. What is it? That's the second question, the second point. Now, we're told here the 00:10:29.759 --> 00:10:36.839 answer basically pretty explicitly by Jesus. He says in verse 44, the kingdom of heaven 00:10:36.839 --> 00:10:42.199 is like treasure hidden in a field. And so last week, I mentioned, if you were here with 00:10:42.199 --> 00:10:48.240 us, we started basically a mini series inside of our mini series. So we're looking at parables 00:10:48.240 --> 00:10:53.680 for short little series, but for a few weeks, we're looking at kingdom parables. And lots 00:10:53.680 --> 00:10:58.879 of the parables Jesus says, the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven is like this. 00:10:58.879 --> 00:11:03.360 And so he tells us here that he's talking about the kingdom of heaven. And so he says 00:11:03.360 --> 00:11:09.240 to us, the kingdom of heaven is a treasure so valuable, it's worth giving everything 00:11:09.240 --> 00:11:14.700 away for in order to possess it. That's the simple point he's making. Now, the great command 00:11:14.700 --> 00:11:21.280 Jesus gives us in Matthew six, seek the kingdom of God first above all else. That's the command 00:11:21.280 --> 00:11:25.600 form of this parable. Seek the kingdom of God above all else in your life. And when 00:11:25.600 --> 00:11:30.200 you do that, you will get everything you want. It's that valuable, it's that precious. And 00:11:30.200 --> 00:11:36.040 here we have the parable form of that same exact command. But there's more depth to it. 00:11:36.040 --> 00:11:40.600 I think we can just take a few minutes to dig into it a little bit more. When you look 00:11:40.600 --> 00:11:45.879 across Matthew's gospel, the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God synonyms, those two 00:11:45.879 --> 00:11:50.560 phrases all over the place is the very first thing that comes out of Jesus's mouth is the 00:11:50.560 --> 00:11:55.399 language of the kingdom of heaven. And we're told in Matthew four that Jesus traveled all 00:11:55.399 --> 00:12:02.680 around Galilee and his early ministry proclaiming the kingdom of heaven. And we're told he told 00:12:02.680 --> 00:12:07.440 in the Beatitudes, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 00:12:07.440 --> 00:12:12.840 And so the idea of the kingdom is really the heartbeat of Jesus's ministry. It is what 00:12:12.840 --> 00:12:16.880 he talks about all the time. And so you've got to have a grasp of the kingdom of heaven, 00:12:16.880 --> 00:12:21.080 a sense of the kingdom of God in order to really understand the gospel itself and what Jesus 00:12:21.080 --> 00:12:26.840 is doing across the gospels. And we said last week, if you were with us, that in the previous 00:12:26.840 --> 00:12:30.440 parable, the parable of the mustard seed, the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed. 00:12:30.440 --> 00:12:36.440 It starts out so small and yet it blossoms into this great tree. And Jesus was teaching 00:12:36.440 --> 00:12:43.240 that the kingdom of heaven there is the power of God to connect heaven and earth. It's a 00:12:43.240 --> 00:12:49.040 fulfillment of Daniel chapter four, the great world tree where the tree, the tree of life 00:12:49.040 --> 00:12:53.560 connects heaven and earth. And so the first thing that the kingdom is, is God's power 00:12:53.560 --> 00:12:58.840 to bring heaven down to earth. The second thing the kingdom is, is the reality that 00:12:58.840 --> 00:13:04.480 when God does that, he's going to gather a people, birds of the air into his nest, that 00:13:04.480 --> 00:13:09.200 he will gather a people and he will bring them home. So the kingdom is the power of 00:13:09.200 --> 00:13:13.279 God to connect heaven and earth. It's the people of God gathered in the tree of life 00:13:13.279 --> 00:13:19.080 himself, Jesus Christ. And lastly, we learned that it is the permeating presence of God, 00:13:19.080 --> 00:13:24.560 him distributing his glory like leaven or yeast throughout the entirety of the earth 00:13:24.560 --> 00:13:28.159 in the second coming of Jesus. That that's the idea of the kingdom of God. It's the 00:13:28.159 --> 00:13:33.759 reign of God. It's the power of God. I read a book this week, looked at a book this week 00:13:33.759 --> 00:13:38.639 about this from Donald Craybill. He wrote a really famous book about the kingdom of 00:13:38.639 --> 00:13:44.319 God. I think it was 1973. That's worth looking at. It's called the upside down kingdom. He's 00:13:44.319 --> 00:13:48.399 very helpful. This is what he says. He says, the kingdom of heaven is not a kingdom in 00:13:48.399 --> 00:13:54.559 heaven. It's not a kingdom where you're hoping to go to heaven, though we will when we pass 00:13:54.559 --> 00:14:01.319 away. The kingdom of heaven is not a kingdom in heaven, but from heaven that comes to 00:14:01.320 --> 00:14:07.160 earth. And when you open up the gospels and you see the face of Jesus Christ, you can 00:14:07.160 --> 00:14:14.640 say, Jesus says, the kingdom of heaven is here because heaven, Jesus himself, God himself 00:14:14.640 --> 00:14:20.720 has come to earth. He's connected heaven and earth. I was helped also this week reading 00:14:20.720 --> 00:14:26.920 about this. Someone said it like this. Sometimes one of the ways to define something, especially 00:14:26.919 --> 00:14:31.519 a really difficult concept like the kingdom of God, is to ask the question, well, what 00:14:31.519 --> 00:14:36.360 is the opposite of the kingdom of God? So you can always define a term by first thinking, 00:14:36.360 --> 00:14:40.839 okay, well, what is the exact opposite of this? And the answer I think in the Bible is the 00:14:40.839 --> 00:14:46.399 opposite of the kingdom of God is what the Bible calls the kingdom of this world. And 00:14:46.399 --> 00:14:52.679 the kingdom of this world is a kingdom that is ruled and reigned by Satan, by the flesh, 00:14:52.679 --> 00:14:59.279 by the sin capacity and power in every single human soul, by death, and by what the Bible 00:14:59.279 --> 00:15:06.000 calls the world, the orientation towards sin and evil in this life. And the story of the 00:15:06.000 --> 00:15:12.399 kingdom of this world is that God made this world to be the kingdom of God. And Satan 00:15:12.399 --> 00:15:18.719 and humanity, Satan tempted us to run away from that and to reject the power of God in 00:15:18.720 --> 00:15:23.120 our lives. And when Jesus comes announcing the kingdom of heaven, what we have here is 00:15:23.120 --> 00:15:28.840 a new power that is actually an older power, a power that's much older, the ancient of 00:15:28.840 --> 00:15:33.800 days, the power that stands long behind anything like the kingdom of this world, the power 00:15:33.800 --> 00:15:40.480 over the kingdom of this world, to renew and to restore and to bring peace, to bring the 00:15:40.480 --> 00:15:45.720 forgiveness of sins. And so when Jesus goes all throughout the gospel of Matthew, he talks 00:15:45.720 --> 00:15:50.680 about the kingdom and then he examples the kingdom. And the way that he shows us what 00:15:50.680 --> 00:15:57.440 the kingdom looks like is he heals diseases. He brings people back from death to life. 00:15:57.440 --> 00:16:02.639 He says to people, your sins are forgiven. That's what the kingdom looks like. That's 00:16:02.639 --> 00:16:07.360 the reality of the kingdom. That's the power of the kingdom. What is, okay, let's move 00:16:07.360 --> 00:16:14.160 on. What is the treasure? What is the pearl? The treasure of the kingdom, the pearl of 00:16:14.159 --> 00:16:18.480 the kingdom. In some sense, it is the kingdom itself, but I think we can get a little more 00:16:18.480 --> 00:16:24.279 specific than that. The treasure, the pearl, what is that one thing that is most precious 00:16:24.279 --> 00:16:30.679 in our lives, in this life, in this human life we're living, that we are called to reorient 00:16:30.679 --> 00:16:37.799 everything for? What is the one thing? What is the one treasure? It is not the cross. 00:16:37.799 --> 00:16:42.519 It's not the cross of Christ. The cross of Christ is the means to the treasure. The cross 00:16:42.519 --> 00:16:48.279 of Christ is the glorious means to get the pearl, to get the treasure, but what is it? 00:16:48.279 --> 00:16:52.960 I think here's one way to say it. When we think about the kingdom, we know that there's 00:16:52.960 --> 00:16:59.360 a king, there's a lord. He has a lordship over all of life. He has a lordship over the 00:16:59.360 --> 00:17:05.279 bugs. He has a lordship over the plants. God created everything. He has a lordship over 00:17:05.279 --> 00:17:11.240 space and time and land and the seas. He's got lordship over everything. And that's good 00:17:11.240 --> 00:17:17.920 news. That's part of the king's kingdom. But the real treasure and the real pearl is not 00:17:17.920 --> 00:17:27.839 just God's lordship over, but his lordship of. In other words, it's like saying, we don't 00:17:27.839 --> 00:17:34.079 just have a God that is lord over our lives, over space and time, over the events of history. 00:17:34.079 --> 00:17:41.679 We have a God who in Jesus Christ came down and said, I want to be lord of your life. 00:17:41.679 --> 00:17:46.279 In other words, the treasure and the pearl is that Jesus Christ came to this world as 00:17:46.279 --> 00:17:53.519 a wiggly little baby in order to get close to you. That's the treasure. The treasure is 00:17:53.519 --> 00:18:01.639 that you can have a relationship with the living God. The pearl of the kingdom, the treasure 00:18:01.640 --> 00:18:08.120 of the kingdom is that God wants to know you and that you can know him. And the message 00:18:08.120 --> 00:18:12.360 of the kingdom, the cross of Christ is that Jesus Christ went all the way down into death 00:18:12.360 --> 00:18:16.400 so that he could get near to you. So that you could commune with him, that you could 00:18:16.400 --> 00:18:20.800 know him, that you could have something in your life that can never be taken away. And 00:18:20.800 --> 00:18:26.240 that's a living relationship with the real God. That's the pearl. That's the treasure. 00:18:26.240 --> 00:18:31.520 That's the thing that's worth flipping everything upside down in your life to get. Reordering 00:18:31.519 --> 00:18:40.400 it's a call to total surrender in your life. Finally, what do we do? Thirdly and finally, 00:18:40.400 --> 00:18:45.960 how do we respond? What do we do with this? And a little bit of a paradox. Finally, let's 00:18:45.960 --> 00:18:49.079 say that when it comes to the kingdom, when it comes to the pearl, when it comes to the 00:18:49.079 --> 00:18:58.519 treasure, some of us need to seek in order to find and some of us need to remember that 00:18:58.519 --> 00:19:02.079 we have been found and we need to start seeking again. 00:19:02.079 --> 00:19:07.759 All right, I get this from the Old Testament where we have what is sort of the corresponding 00:19:07.759 --> 00:19:14.319 command of the kingdom of God in the Old Testament. In the New Testament, we have the command, 00:19:14.319 --> 00:19:19.359 seek first the kingdom of God above everything and you will have the treasure. You will have 00:19:19.359 --> 00:19:24.240 the pearl. You will have the one thing that will really satisfy you, a relationship with 00:19:24.240 --> 00:19:28.680 Jesus Christ himself. In the Old Testament, we have a really similar command in Jeremiah 00:19:28.680 --> 00:19:35.599 29, which we'll be looking at in September. Seek me, God says, and you will find me when 00:19:35.599 --> 00:19:40.319 you seek me with all your heart. Seek first the kingdom of God, seek me, God says, and 00:19:40.319 --> 00:19:44.200 you will find me when you seek me with all of your heart. Now, some of us come today, 00:19:44.200 --> 00:19:48.559 I think, on the early side of that probably. There's people in this room from all over 00:19:48.559 --> 00:19:55.000 the world on this very, this July full of visitors, from all over the world, all different 00:19:55.000 --> 00:20:01.480 backgrounds, perhaps all different religions. And the command today that comes over us in 00:20:01.480 --> 00:20:07.639 this is to seek God in order to find him. Another way to say it in more modern language 00:20:07.639 --> 00:20:13.159 is this. This parable, underlying this parable, is the very fact that every single one of 00:20:13.159 --> 00:20:18.159 us as human beings are actually seeking a treasure in our lives. We are seeking a pearl. We are 00:20:18.160 --> 00:20:23.240 seeking the one thing that will bring us fulfillment. We are seeking all of us. We long for the 00:20:23.240 --> 00:20:30.600 one thing that would actually satisfy us. Charles Taylor is a Roman Catholic philosopher 00:20:30.600 --> 00:20:35.320 and thinker in Canada. He wrote one of the most important books of the last 20, 25 years 00:20:35.320 --> 00:20:42.040 or so called A Secular Age. He's trying to understand the conditions of the past couple 00:20:42.040 --> 00:20:46.680 hundred years that brought the secularism of the modern world to us in this book. But 00:20:46.680 --> 00:20:51.640 one of the things that he's very helpful in the book is he says that underlying every 00:20:51.640 --> 00:20:57.880 single basic human desire is a longing for fulfillment. So that's the one word he says 00:20:57.880 --> 00:21:03.600 you can think on. What do humans want? And Taylor says we want fulfillment. And the way 00:21:03.600 --> 00:21:11.519 he defines fulfillment is he says fulfillment is purpose that is bigger than yourself and 00:21:11.519 --> 00:21:17.839 being valued or loved by somebody that you value. So he says fulfillment happens when 00:21:17.839 --> 00:21:22.220 those two things come together. When you find a purpose in this life that is much bigger 00:21:22.220 --> 00:21:28.519 than yourself on the one hand and being loved and valued by somebody you think is valuable 00:21:28.519 --> 00:21:33.119 on the other hand. Bringing those two things together you find fulfillment. Every single 00:21:33.119 --> 00:21:36.440 one of us are walking through life looking for that. And so when we live this very modern 00:21:36.440 --> 00:21:42.720 life chasing accomplishment after accomplishment after accomplishment but not living for something 00:21:42.720 --> 00:21:49.320 bigger than ourselves and not hearing the pronouncement that we are loved and found 00:21:49.320 --> 00:21:55.799 precious by the one who is most precious in all of existence then there's a lack of fulfillment 00:21:55.799 --> 00:22:03.279 in our lives. And the Christian philosophers call that the search for religious consciousness. 00:22:03.279 --> 00:22:07.440 A search deep down in the heart of who we are. A consciousness all the way at the bottom 00:22:07.440 --> 00:22:14.319 for real religion. True religion. And true religion is to be able to say I exist for 00:22:14.319 --> 00:22:20.740 something enormous that will never go away. And I am loved from top to bottom by the most 00:22:20.740 --> 00:22:26.399 precious God himself and that can never be taken away from me. That we want that we long 00:22:26.399 --> 00:22:30.720 for that. That is actually what you're looking for. Now even if you're chasing something 00:22:30.720 --> 00:22:36.120 else in this life right now the Bible comes and says that is what you want. That is the 00:22:36.120 --> 00:22:41.400 desire beneath all your desires. It's the treasure. It's the pearl. It's what you're 00:22:41.400 --> 00:22:46.920 really chasing after. And so I think very simple this passage just calls us to ask the 00:22:46.920 --> 00:22:51.799 question what are the little bitty pearls and the little bitty treasures that are only 00:22:51.799 --> 00:23:00.000 relatively valuable that you're chasing right now in your life. Do you really have fulfillment? 00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:07.000 Do you really have purpose and love that will not let you go? The objective meaning itself 00:23:07.000 --> 00:23:12.599 and the subjective love that will never leave you. You can only get that in relationship 00:23:12.599 --> 00:23:16.240 with the living God through Jesus Christ. That's the meaning of the parable. That's 00:23:16.240 --> 00:23:25.160 the thing that's worth giving your life for. One pastor I heard teach on this passage recently 00:23:25.160 --> 00:23:31.440 he said that some of us maybe today have been searching for fulfillment and joy and meaning 00:23:31.440 --> 00:23:38.880 and we've maybe been around the treasure, the gospel. Jesus Christ our whole lives but 00:23:38.880 --> 00:23:44.960 we've been fundamentally, functionally ignoring it actually. And he puts it like this, you 00:23:44.960 --> 00:23:52.000 know when all the people heard that old Joe the farm hand who had found this treasure was 00:23:52.000 --> 00:23:58.240 selling all of his possessions to buy such a mediocre field. You know they would have 00:23:58.240 --> 00:24:02.920 said something like I've walked by that field a thousand times and there's just nothing 00:24:02.920 --> 00:24:07.240 special about it. And they don't know what Joe know, Joe found treasure but they've walked 00:24:07.240 --> 00:24:11.000 past that field a thousand times and it's just a normal field and this guy's flipping 00:24:11.000 --> 00:24:17.799 his life over for it. And it is very possible that you've walked past the field a thousand 00:24:17.799 --> 00:24:24.200 times and have yet to actually see the treasure. That there really is a living God who has 00:24:24.200 --> 00:24:31.399 come to make a relationship with you through the power of the cross of Jesus Christ. To 00:24:31.399 --> 00:24:36.960 Yohiko Kagawa, Japanese Christian died in the middle 20th century. He's one of the more 00:24:36.960 --> 00:24:42.720 famous, sorry more important 20th century Christian world leaders that's very unknown 00:24:42.720 --> 00:24:48.839 I think to people. Wrote over 150 books, was a Christian social reformer in Japan and 00:24:48.839 --> 00:24:53.799 just a powerful evangelist, To Yohiko Kagawa. But I love what he says about his own search 00:24:53.799 --> 00:25:00.440 for the treasure. He says I am grateful for, he grew up as a Buddhist but he says this, 00:25:00.440 --> 00:25:06.880 I'm grateful for Shinto, for Buddhism and for Confucianism. I owe much to these faiths 00:25:06.880 --> 00:25:12.880 in terms of my upbringing yet they could never meet me at the moment of my heart's deepest 00:25:12.880 --> 00:25:18.960 needs. He writes I was a pilgrim journeying on a long road that had no turning. I was 00:25:18.960 --> 00:25:24.600 weary, I was foot sore, I wandered through a dark and dismal world where tragedies were 00:25:24.600 --> 00:25:33.120 thick. Buddhism teaches great compassion but since the beginning of all time who has ever 00:25:33.119 --> 00:25:38.759 said this is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness 00:25:38.759 --> 00:25:45.799 of sins. You know I learned a lot from Buddhism but Buddha could have never said my blood 00:25:45.799 --> 00:25:50.639 has been poured out to cleanse the world for the forgiveness of sins, to put me right 00:25:50.639 --> 00:25:57.719 with God. There's only one place to find fulfillment and forgiveness and I love that will not 00:25:57.720 --> 00:26:02.920 let you go. Meaning, purpose and love all found in the one treasure which is a living 00:26:02.920 --> 00:26:08.319 relationship with the living God. Lastly, finally for the rest of us, if you're a Christian 00:26:08.319 --> 00:26:14.200 today, if you're a growing Christian today, some of us previously we need to actually 00:26:14.200 --> 00:26:18.720 seek the gospel, the treasure for the first time and find it. We've passed about a thousand 00:26:18.720 --> 00:26:23.920 times. Others of us here today we need to remember that we were found in order to start 00:26:23.920 --> 00:26:31.160 seeking again. And so the command, the call of this passage is to seek the treasure, seek 00:26:31.160 --> 00:26:37.039 the pearl, commune with the living God, remember what you've been given, what's been offered 00:26:37.039 --> 00:26:42.120 to you. And so it could be possible today that for some of us we found the treasure a 00:26:42.120 --> 00:26:49.039 long, long time ago but we have neglected and forgotten over time to actually reorder 00:26:49.039 --> 00:26:56.839 our life and to liquidate and to give away ourselves for the treasure and the pearl. 00:26:56.839 --> 00:27:01.599 And we've basically taken that one treasure and put it in one of the drawers of our lives 00:27:01.599 --> 00:27:07.639 as a compartmental treasure next to all the other pearls and treasures that we seek after. 00:27:07.639 --> 00:27:13.680 And so I think the call of this passage is that God cannot just be an aspect of our lives 00:27:13.680 --> 00:27:18.039 but the treasure of our lives. The very focus, the most precious thing to us is Jesus Christ, 00:27:18.039 --> 00:27:25.599 the most precious thing to you, the most precious person to you in your Christian life. A test 00:27:25.599 --> 00:27:29.359 that I've heard others talk about in the past and we'll close with this, a test that I've 00:27:29.359 --> 00:27:34.240 heard others talk about that I think really gets at the functional question. What is your 00:27:34.240 --> 00:27:39.559 functional treasure, your functional pearl in this life? When you're by yourself, when 00:27:39.559 --> 00:27:44.639 you're in total solitude in the midst of utter quiet, when you're alone, when you're not 00:27:44.640 --> 00:27:52.840 being watched by anyone, there is no publicity, no public at all. What is the one thing that 00:27:52.840 --> 00:27:57.200 most commonly comes to your mind and your heart in those moments? So what do you think 00:27:57.200 --> 00:28:05.759 about? What resources do you go towards pondering and reflecting on, desiring in the moment, 00:28:05.759 --> 00:28:11.759 so the quiet, when no one else is viewing you, nothing is around you? And Tim Keller 00:28:11.759 --> 00:28:16.720 puts it like this, I don't think I can improve upon this so I'm going to quote him. He writes 00:28:16.720 --> 00:28:22.440 it like this, he says, can you look at anything in your life and say, nothing is more important 00:28:22.440 --> 00:28:28.879 to me than Jesus? If it's a choice between that and Jesus, if it's a choice between 00:28:28.879 --> 00:28:38.039 that and Jesus, if it's a choice between that and Jesus, can I suffer the loss of anything? 00:28:38.039 --> 00:28:44.720 For Jesus' sake, last test, have you been working in an environment, a neighborhood, 00:28:44.720 --> 00:28:50.960 a social community of some kind, an online community perhaps, for years and nobody knows 00:28:50.960 --> 00:28:57.559 in that environment that you are a follower of Jesus Christ? Can you ask yourself that? 00:28:57.559 --> 00:29:04.159 Do the people around me know what my treasure is, what my pearl is? Is my image more important 00:29:04.160 --> 00:29:08.720 to me than the kingdom of God? What is most precious to me in all this life? Seek first 00:29:08.720 --> 00:29:14.880 the kingdom of God and His righteousness which came to us by a gift, the righteousness of 00:29:14.880 --> 00:29:22.080 Jesus given for us at the cross and you will have everything, fulfillment. Let us pray. 00:29:22.080 --> 00:29:29.720 Father, we ask that you would make Jesus himself our treasure and pearl, that we would liquidate, 00:29:29.720 --> 00:29:34.160 that we would reorder, that we would flip everything upside down, that we would give 00:29:34.160 --> 00:29:41.960 our lives because you Jesus gave your life for us. And so we ask, Lord, that we would 00:29:41.960 --> 00:29:51.200 have desire to seek the one who found us first. So give us this morning, Lord, a fresh and 00:29:51.200 --> 00:29:59.559 hopeful and joyful vision of such a beautiful gospel, loved even as we are known as sinners, 00:29:59.559 --> 00:30:06.240 loved all the way into purity that is a gift from Christ. And Lord, you want to know us, 00:30:06.240 --> 00:30:10.039 you want to relate to us. We thank you for that. So I just pray that someone many in 00:30:10.039 --> 00:30:14.519 here today perhaps would draw closer to God no matter what's going on in life, no matter 00:30:14.519 --> 00:30:20.079 how bad it may be for friends who are sick, for friends who are struggling, for friends 00:30:20.079 --> 00:30:26.200 here today who are anxious and maybe struggling with depression or whatever it may be, God, 00:30:26.200 --> 00:30:30.600 that all of us would find Sabbath rest in the fact that we have the love of Christ that 00:30:30.600 --> 00:30:35.680 cannot be taken away. No matter what the world thinks, no matter what anybody thinks, thank 00:30:35.680 --> 00:30:40.319 you for such a wonderful gift. And we pray that we would all treasure the treasure. And 00:30:40.319 --> 00:30:57.359 we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.