The Treasure and the Pearl

Intro

Want to again welcome you to the first ever Easter service for New Creation Church

We are a new church seeking to serve this community

And I’ll share a little more at the end of our time together about how you might connect to us because we would love to connect with you

But each time we gather, we read just a little from the Bible because we believe that the Bible is God’s Word to us and gives us insight into who he is and how we can know him

This morning, we are starting a new series on The Parables

A parable is just a short story with a point

And in just 3 short verses, Jesus tells 2 parables

Scripture Reading: Matthew 13:44-46

Matthew 13:44–46 ESV

“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. “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.

Retell Parables

So Jesus tells 2 short little stories

In the first, a guy is going along and finds an incredible treasure

He covers it back up and goes to buy the land it is on

His goal is own the land, own what is buried in the land, including the treasure he already knew was there!

And since the treasure was so great, it was worth him selling everything he has to buy that land

And then Jesus tells a second related story

When he says “again” he is connecting to the two as similar stories with similar points, just restated slightly differently

In this second story, Jesus explains that a merchant is looking for pearls and when he finds one that is so great - so beautiful and so valuable - that he sells everything to buy it

If in the first story, the man kinda stumbles across the treasure, in the second the merchant is on the hunt for pearls

He is actively looking for pearls when he finds this one

But in both, there is an object of such great value that it was worth selling everything else to gain that one thing

Two Perspectives

So each story has one person: the man and the merchant

And each story has one object of immeasurable value: the treasure and the pearl

And for each, to understand the stories, we can ask two questions:

Who does the “man” or the “merchant” represent?

What does the “treasure” or “pearl” represent?

That is, who is the guy who finds the treasure?

Who is the merchant searching for pearls?

And secondly, what is the treasure or what is the pearl that is worth selling everything else to buy it?

I want to suggest there are two ways to look at these stories

You are the “Man” or the “Merchant”

The first way to read these stories is to see ourselves as the man or the merchant

That is, all of us are looking for something

We want meaning, we want purpose, we want our lives to matter

We want to find that thing in life that is of all surpassing value that when we look at it, when we hold it, we know it was worth everything

Maybe you are here this morning and you know that you have looked in a lot of places and, in the immortal words of U2, “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for”

And so you are asking, “What could that treasure be that is worth selling everything to buy it? What is that pearl that is so beautiful that everything else looks plain and dull and dusty next to it?”

That is, if you are the man or the merchant in these stories Jesus is telling, what is that thing that you could find that would be worth everything?

In another place in the Bible, it talks about the “surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Phil 3:8)

There is only one thing that is of the infinite, overwhelming value in this life: knowing the God who made you and who loves you and, even now, is reigning over the whole world that he made

Listen: the God who made everything - including you! - is no distant, disengaged, disconnected, or detached deity

He is not a cold, stand-offish kind of god

He is the God who draws near

He has made himself knowable

He has torn the veil, bridged the gap, and invited you in

And to know this God, the one true, living, holy God, is to find the one treasure so valuable, so soul-satisfying, that is worth selling everything else to gain it

Nothing compares, nothing even comes close

And herein lies the problem:

Knowing God is not something that can be bought at all

Access to heaven, to God himself, is not something that you, or I, can buy

Even if we sold everything, we could never afford to buy that thing, the only thing, that is truly worth gaining!

Transition

“Wait, pastor” you might be saying

So if there is something that is worth that much but we can’t get it, is there any hope?

Well, on our own, the answer is no

The Bible describes us - all of us - as sinners

That is, we have disobeyed God

The effect is that we are so deeply in debt that not only can we not buy access to God, we can’t even get out of the negative

As one verse in the Bible puts it

Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death”

But that brings us to the second way of looking at these two stories Jesus tells

What if, instead of being the one seeking to find a treasure, we are the treasure?

What if, instead of being the merchant, we are the pearl?

You are the “Treasure” or the “Pearl”

What would it mean if we flip our roles in the story?

What would that mean if we are the treasure or the pearl in these stories from Jesus?

I want to propose 3 implications if we read the story this way

1) You are of immeasurable worth

Genesis 1 describes God making the world and everything in it

At the end of day of creation, God stops, looks at what he made, and said, “It is good”

After Day 1 of creation, “it is good”

Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5 - all the same

Until Day 6, when he changes the formula

At the end of Day 6 of creation, God says something different

He says, “It is very good”

So what is different? What changed?

He made us - humanity - man and woman

Somewhere else in the Bible it says that you are “wonderfully made” (Ps 139:14)

God loves you… even more… he delights in you

We have expressions that we use attempting to capture something that is just right

When we want to describe a really beautiful work of art from an accomplished artist, we don’t say ‘art’, we say ‘masterpiece’

When we want to describe the perfect, delicious meal that came out just the way the chef intended, we do chef’s kiss

That, my friends, is how God sees you!

He looks at you and sees the masterpiece, the chef’s kiss, of all that he created!

Not because of something you did, because you got it right, because you succeeded

Because he made you and delights in you

Like most of us, you may be here this morning with some sense that your worth is tied to your performance, to your success, to your actions

But your worth is not in those things

Or maybe you wonder if you are worth anything at all and are struggling to believe you have any value, feeling totally worthless

You are!

You are of immeasurable worth!

2) You are being searched for

But it gets better

Not only are you of immeasurable worth, you are being searched for

If in these stories, we are the treasure or pearl, who is it that is searching for us?

Jesus, the very one telling the story!

Jesus once said

Luke 19:10 “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.””

Son of Man was a name that Jesus often used for himself based on some references earlier in the Bible

Jesus came to seek that which was lost, buried, hidden

Jesus came to search for that treasure, for that pearl, for you

3) The One who searches for you paid everything for you

So you are of great worth

And Jesus is searching for you

But the parables go on to tell us that once finding that which was worth so much, the man and the merchant both sold everything to buy it

So how did Jesus “buy” you?

His death on the cross was the ultimate payment to buy the thing he valued more than anything in the world: you, and me

We gather here this morning, on Easter, celebrating that Jesus rose from the dead

And we do so because he died in the first place

And why did he die?

To buy us back from our sin and the consequences we rightfully deserved for it

It was his death that paid the full price for our sin

Not with silver or gold, but with his own precious blood he purchased what was immeasurable worth: you!

And because he rose again, on that first Easter morning, triumphant over the grave, he lives!

He lives to rejoice over you, to call you his own, and to give you the greatest gift of all: the surpassing joy of knowing God

Conclusion: Doubly Mine

There is an old story about a boy who made a little boat

He had worked hard to carve this little boat

He was so proud of it and loved it in a way that only the maker of the boat could

He made the boat and loved it

Once he finished the boat, he was so excited

He took it down to the water to see if it would float

And it did… right away from him

He was so distraught, he searched everywhere trying to find that boat

But it was gone

Some time later, the boy is walking down the street and passes a store

Right there, in the front window display of the store, is the boat he made

He couldn’t believe it, there it was!

He raced into the store and asked for it back

He told the owner he made the boat and he lost it

The owner looked at the boy and simply said, “If you want the boat, you will have to buy it”

Instead of being sad, the boy was overwhelmed with joy

He raced home, grabbed his piggy bank and raced back to the store

He put it up on the counter and broke it open

All those coins he found on the street, the money he had gotten for birthdays, all of it, came flooding out onto the counter

And with that, he picked up his boat - the boat he had made - and walked down the street skipping he was so happy

He looked at that boat and said simply, “You are now doubly mine. I made you and I bought you”

Friends, that is the power of the parables we read this morning

And it is the power of Easter

The God who made you is the God who sought you and the God who bought you

He looks at you and says that you are now doubly mine

That thing that was of immeasurable worth to him - you and me- he bought to be his forever

And because he did, we get that which is of immeasurable worth to us - God himself

Maybe this Easter morning you are realizing for the first time that the Easter story is about a God who delights in you so much that he gave his own life for you

You are worth that much to God!

This morning, as I close, I want to offer a couple of suggestions of what you can do in response to this message

Really, what you can do in response to the beauty, power, and truth of Easter that God died and God rose again

First, I invite you to repent and believe the good news that Jesus death and his resurrection were for you

Acknowledge that you have disobeyed God and want to know what it means to be so valued by God that he gave his life for you

Second, ask a question

After the service, we have some treats

Grab a donut, some fruit and then grab someone wearing the New Creation Church shirts

Any of them would love to share with you more about the church or hear what questions you may have about God

Third, join us next Sunday night

We are a new church and would love for you to explore being involved

Come check us out next Sunday night at 5:30 at St. Margaret’s as we dive into more of the stories that Jesus tells

And, finally, be encouraged

I don’t know what is going on in your life

As I said earlier, maybe you try to prove your worth by your actions or maybe you believe you are totally worthless

But you are not - you are the treasure, you are the pearl

And God is coming to find you!

Pray