The Kingdom of Heaven is Upon Us

In Matthew when Jesus started his public ministry he began to preach Matthew 4:17 “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”” In Mark it is referred to the Kingdom of God and thats what it is. Matthew is writing with a Jewish audience in mind and it was Jewish culture to avoid using the name for God and using something else in its place as a sign of reverence, but its the same thing. The Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Heaven, is at hand. It is upon it. It could be translated as it is dawning with the idea that it is in part already here. Think of the dawning of the sun where the rays are poking over the mountains but not full risen. There is a dual meaning here. The Kingdom of heaven is dawning in that we have not reaching the “end times” of a final judgement and the world will be made new (Rev 21:5) But it also here in that the Christ, the Messiah as come. We can be part of the new covenant with Christ and the work of the cross is complete and we now have access to the Holy Spirit. It is “already not yet.” Already we can be united with Christ in his death and resurrection but all things that God from will from now until the “end of the age” has not happened yet. Similar to saying we are being made to be more like Christ if we have a relationship with him, but we have not yet been made fully like Christ as we still live on earth as we will have this flesh that is infected by sin from the fall. What a day that will be when we are made new before the throne of God. I want to look at three parables of the Kingdom of Heaven and for tonight when I talk about the importance of the Kingdom of Heaven, I am focusing on the importance that you are and will be a citizens of this Kingdom because you have a relationship with Jesus Christ and the God who sits on the throne of Heaven.

Three truths from three parables about the Kingdom of Heaven.

The Kingdom of Heaven is of Ultimate Value.

There is nothing in the world that can compare to the treasure we have in Christ Jesus. It is not a treasure that has anything to do with money, or pleasure, or comfort, but is the treasure of eternal life in the presence of God.

Matthew 13:44 ““The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”

A. Recognizing the worth

The man in the parable has come across a treasure and a field. According to Rabbinic law, if you found a treasure and unearthed it, it would belong to the owner of the field. This isn’t foreign concept to us. I have a lot of woods behind myself and I admit I go back there with my dog but its not my property. If I came across some treasure, a civil war artifact, it belongs to the owner of the land. I would need to buy his property to own it. So the man finds the treasure and he covers it up. He doesn’t want this treasure exposed so that he can go and purchase it. Lets not read into the parable and get some weird idea that we need to cover up the kingdom of God, that would contradict Jesus’ other teachings. But what this shows is the man recognized the immense value of the treasure. So much so, his response was to sell everything he owned so he could attain it. He recognized the treasure was not just of immense value, it was worth more than everything he had and that it would be better to have nothing and have this treasure, the treasure of being apart of the Kingdom of Heaven. We could put it this way. If you have nothing but you have Jesus, you have EVERYTHING. If you have everything but you do not have Jesus, you have NOTHING. Nothing of lasting value.

B. The Joy

There is an important word in this verse. JOY. JOY. It was a joy to sell everything. He was happy to do it. He did not do it out of duty. This is important. Sometimes us Christians go about our Christian life as if it is a duty that we must perform. Like, being at work. I have to be at work because I have rent or a mortgage and mouths to feed. It is my duty and my obligation to do it. Its not charity. Some Christians may do ministry out of duty. You can usually tell. How? They don’t have any joy. I worked out at a soup kitchen for a while and there was old guy who ran it. He was mean, he was angry, he did it all out of duty and had no joy. This was in Norfolk, VA in a rough area and he was known to snap at people even if you were trying to help him, he was just miserable. But he was in the Church about everyday, working. So we would have line of people in the church to get their meal. One time he got mad at somebody and used a racial slur and he was an old white guy. I thought he was going to die. I thought they are going to kill you. A group of folks who heard him use the slur, and they were all black, and looked at him and their face went from shock, and not to anger like I thought, but they laughed at him. They laughed at him. They realized the man was a joke and they did not take him seriously. They saw him for what he was. A sad, bitter man with no joy who not even worth being angry at. How much of a witness for Christ is that. If we claim to be Christian and there is no joy in us, none, ever. The world will look at us and say “Religion. What a joke.” Chap Larry loves this job and it is a joy for him. Why? Why is it such a joy for him? Is it because hes just such a bubbly guy and that's his personality? No. Its not something rooted internally. Its an external thing that is making him have that internal joy. It is because of his relationship with Jesus if the foundation for everything he does and because of that there is joy that comes from the Lord that is welling up inside of him and has to come out.

C. Application. How do we do this? How do we see the Kingdom of Heaven as the most valuable thing and are so filled with joy that we would freely give up everything for it?

Monday we had a Celebrate Recovery meeting and we got deep into the question of “How do we do this?” Step 1. We admitted we were powerless over our addictions and compulsive behaviors. That our lives had become unmanageable. Romans 7:18 "I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out." Paul in Chapter 7 is not speaking as an unbeliever, he is talking about his life as a follower of Jesus. So we were asking ourselves, if this is true we desire to do what is good we do not have the ability to carry out, what hope do we have to be sober when their is temptation all around us? We can’t live in a recovery meeting. We can’t live in a church building and only leave to get groceries. What hope do we have to be filled with so much joy that we would give up everything to be in the Kingdom of Heaven? Well we kept reading. Especially when you read Romans 7 you want to be sure to get to Romans 8:1 “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” That’s great news.

We kept going to Romans 8:13–14 “For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.”

Similar to Romans 8, Galatians 5:18 “But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.” And this is after saying in Galatians 5:16 “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.” And Galatians 5:22–23 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.” So if we are led by the Spirit we will walk by the Spirit, and the product is the fruit of the Spirit, one of which is Joy.

Romans 15:13 “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, (so this joy is coming to us FROM God) so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” This joy that we are filled with is given to us by God. I know I just threw a lot of verses at you. But I want you to know I am not just pulling things out of thin air. I never want to preach my opinions. If I, or anybody, says something that doesn’t have a scriptural basis for it, disregard it. We don’t preach cliche’s we preach the truth, or at least by God’s grace we try to.

The joy of being willing to give up everything for the Kingdom of God is not a joy that you self-will. It is not a joy that you just clench your fists really hard and try to conjure up inside yourself. This is something we need to obtain from God. I am not harping on this because this is my opportunity to jam my view of what scripture means down peoples throats because I am the one standing up here. I want to put on you the the truth that we are in total dependence of God’s grace to work through us and to change us and not the burden of works that you just need to try harder to be more righteous and its all on your own strength to do it. PLEASE. I am not saying no effort on our part is involved, please don’t think I am saying we just sit around and do nothing. I am saying that we need to be praying without ceasing for God’s grace to enable us to see the worth of the Kingdom of Heaven and to be filled with a joy that surpasses all the pleasure of this world because our flesh cannot see the Kingdom that way. (Remember Nicodemus, he was smart but needed to be born again) We should constantly be praying for God’s grace. Grace is not a one time shot in the arm you get when you become a Christian and now its up to you do it the rest all on your own. Grace is a flowing spring inside us supplied by God that enables us to live for him in joy and peace and to see him more valuable than all the other things things this world has to offer.

So if you see the Kingdom of Heaven as more valuable than anything in this world, praise God for that because that is because of the grace of God. If you are saying to yourself “Honestly, I don’t see it like this parable is describing. I am not ready to give up some of these things.” God sees our hearts so there's not point in lying to God or ourselves. Many years ago I told somebody “look, I have no problem with Jesus. In fact, I believe he was everything he said He was. My problem is there are things I am doing that I do no want to give up.” They told me “Just get to know Jesus.” They knew that there was heart change that needed to happen and that God was the one that needed to do it. And I believe God did change my heart.

2. (Repeate) The Kingdom of Heaven is of ultimate value and second: The Kingdom of Heaven is the “thing” we have been looking for.

Matthew 13:45–46 ““Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.”

This parable helps cement in our minds the immeasurable value of the Kingdom of Heaven when compared to anything else in this world. In this parable a man is searching of fine pearls. He finds one that is worth so much to him and abandons all reason as a merchant. If you are a merchant, your interest is in buying and reselling things. This is not about a lucrative business opportunity that the man has stumbled upon. Everything else goes out the window when he finds this pearl of great value. He basically sells his whole pearl business just to have the pearl of great value. He recognizes the value of this pearl is worth more than everything he owns.

A. What would people say we value?

If somebody followed us around, what would they say after a couple of days about what it is that we value? How would they determine it? How we spend our time maybe. How we spend our money. The things that we say. My grandparents on my fathers side were “culture Christians.” Culture Christians are sort of dying out because our culture is becoming more hostile to Christianity. But they went to Church on Easter and Christmas eve and believed in God, at least claimed to. But when my Dad became a real Christian there was an obvious change. To them, he got “weird.” He became what they would call then a “Jesus freak.” Going to church was fine, believing in God was fine, but having your entire life revolve around your relationship with Jesus to them was weird. He had found that treasure. It was worth more than anything in the world to him. When we see the Kingdom of Heaven like this in these parables (hold Bible), people are going to think its foolishness.

1 Corinthians 1:18 “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” These parables. What we are doing tonight. To those who are are spiritually blind, this is all foolishness. We are delusional, our faith is a coping mechanism. They may accuse you of finding “jailhouse Jesus. Christianity. But they are the one’s still searching for something. Btw, side note, my mom found Jesus in prison and they told her the same thing. That was 40 years ago. She hasn’t looked back. Why? Because she found her treasure.

B. People will deny God but are still desperate for that “something” that will save them, give them hope, or help them escape whether is be a career, sex, money, drugs, or just apathy. As Christians we can follow Jesus and yet we still get distracted and go after that “thing” that we think will satisfy and God reminds us through the emptiness we experience when it doesn’t fulfill us that He is the only thing that truly satisfies us. If you are not a Christian, then you are still trying to cram your heart with all sorts of distractions and I hope and pray you’re about sick of it. I heard a man once say “there is no worse feeling than when that thing that you thought would finally satisfy you lets you down.” I think there is some truth to that. It is in indication you were made for something more. Something greater. You were made for something Heavenly. If you were made for the Kingdom of Heaven then nothing on this earth will satisfy you.

3. The Kingdom of Heaven is for the righteous

Matthew 13:47–50 ““Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind. When it was full, men drew it ashore and sat down and sorted the good into containers but threw away the bad. So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

In these previous two parables Jesus has been talking about the now, the present, but in this parable shifts to the future. There is coming an end of the “age” and the Kingdom of Heaven will be made complete. There will be no more earthly Kingdoms and no more opportunity to repent. Scripture is clear that the Kingdom of Heaven is not for everyone it is only for the righteous. Not just sort of righteous, or basically righteous, but perfectly righteous. Scripture is also clear that we are not righteous (as we discussed) and on our own ability we cannot be righteous. God is a holy God. Show me a Church that that neglects the awe and reverence for a Holy God and I will show you a Church that will boom in size and full of “good vibes” but is void of the Spirit and truth. God does not tolerate sin. God is Holy but God is love. And God sent his own son in our place to die so that our sin and the wrath of God was put on Jesus and the righteousness of Jesus was “imputed” or “put on” us. That’s part of the reason its such a big deal we believe in the deity of Jesus. That’s the only way Jesus’ death could fulfill the justice of God and yet withstand the wrath of God and not be totally obliterated by it. These aren’t my opinions. 1 Peter 2:24 “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.” 2 Corinthians 5:21 “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

Our hope of being righteous is to be washed by the blood of Jesus and presented as Holy before God because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. If you do not have a relationship with Jesus Christ then your sins are still on your head and you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven. And God will not ignore it. He is Holy and He is just. But if you put your faith in Jesus he is also just to forgive us our sins. (Philip Piano).