Hidden Treasures

I love it when we have the baby dedications because they remind me of how great and precious and valuable each and every human life really is!

Last week I talked with you about the subject of what we value in this life, based off of the statement that Jesus made in , “Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.”

If you were here and heard that message, or possible you listened to it on the church Vimeo page, (OPEN APP AND SHOW HOW TO GET TO THE VIMEO PAGE), then you might remember that I shared about how we tend to value things the most, in which we have invested the most into!

I really stressed in that messsage, the importance of serving the Lord with zeal and gratitude while we have the time here, in this life, so that we will gain our eternal treasure and reward of spending eternity with Jesus and serving Him as faithful stewards in heaven!

If you will recall, the point was stressed in last weeks message that we are not to desire and put all of our time and attention into acquiring wordly riches and posessions, that we cannot keep and that we will ulitmately leave behind for others to enjoy.

“What does it profit a man, if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? Is anything worth more than your own soul?”

There are different passages found within the Bible that warn us of and show us the outcome of people’s hearts that are bent on materialism and the allurement of wealth in this world, as opposed to storing up for themselves treasures in the eternal life that comes after.

In , we read of the account of the leper, Naaman, who was a very powerful and wealthy military figure, under the king of Aram.

In this account Naaman wanted the prophet Elisha to provide for him a cure for his leprosy. And the cure that Elisha offered Naaman, was a 7x dip into the Jordan river, at which Naama balked, because he felt too important and far above such a thing.

He finally conceded and took the 7x Nestee plung into the Jordan and came out with skin as new as a baby’s!

He then said, “Now I know that there is no God in all the world except in Israel.”

You see, Naaman gained the greatest treasure that has ever existed that day; he gained the truth of and the value of Yahweh, the one true God!

This was the positive outcome of this account story in II Kings. There was a negative account within the same story.

If you remember, the servant of Elisha, Gehazi, wanted the treasure that Naaman had offered to Elisha, which Elisha turned down. (Elisha knew that God was the one true treasure and worldly treasures, had no place in his heart.

Because Gehazi lied and decieved Naaman into giving him a healthy little bundle of wealth for himself, he and his descendants that would come after him, paid the price.

When he returned with the 150 lbs of silver and the clothing that Naaman had given him, he hid it and then returned to his master, Elisha.

Elisha asked Gehazi where he had been and gave him a chance to answer for himself. Gehazi lied through his teeth about his whereabouts, but Elisha let Gehazi know that he knew where he had been and in fact was spirtitually shown of the whole occurrence.

Because Gehazi lied and decieved all for the gain of earthly treasures, he and all of his descendants after him, would be cursed with the very thing that Naaman was healed of; LEPROSY!

What an ironic twist: Naaman had wealth and power and gave it up for the greater treasure of knowing God and was set free from his disease, but then there was Gehazi who had the greater treasure of knowing the one true God and gave it up for worldly wealth and in return gained the disease!

And let’s not forget one other story that we find within God’s word that accentuates the fallacy of going after earthly treasures to the point of abandoning our walk with the Lord.

In , we read the account of the couple who were named, Ananias and Sapphira. This account took place right around the time when the church was birthed at Pentecost.

A time in which we read of how the people of the newly born church (the ekklēsia), were responding to one another.

Listen to this, as we find in ,

Acts 4:32–37 NLT

All the believers were united in heart and mind. And they felt that what they owned was not their own, so they shared everything they had. The apostles testified powerfully to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and God’s great blessing was upon them all. There were no needy people among them, because those who owned land or houses would sell them and bring the money to the apostles to give to those in need. For instance, there was Joseph, the one the apostles nicknamed Barnabas (which means “Son of Encouragement”). He was from the tribe of Levi and came from the island of Cyprus. He sold a field he owned and brought the money to the apostles.

So, the body of Christ was actively spreading the gospel and serving one another and growing daily!

Ananias and Sapphira wanted to have the best of both worlds (well, as far as earthly/carnal desires are concerned). They wanted to hold onto their money and yet still receive the accolades of others for being benevolent.

So, they sold some property they owned, gave half of the money to the disciples and kept the other half for themselves and yet did so under the pretenses that they were giving it all to church family!

I don’t think that the new church quite had their 501C3 tax exempt status at that time and so Ananias and his wife were penalized for their contributions.

In , we read,

Acts 5:3 NLT

Then Peter said, “Ananias, why have you let Satan fill your heart? You lied to the Holy Spirit, and you kept some of the money for yourself.

So, this prompts me to think that Holy Spirit had in fact told this couple to sell the property and give its proceeds to the church.

They lied to Him and out of greed, they withheld that which was required of them.

The end result, they both dropped dead that day!

Remember what Jesus said about the desire of trying to acquire wealth, as He told of the account of the rich land owner in Luke 12, in which the man has stored up for himself much wealth and bragged on it in his heart?

Then the Bible records that, “God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your soul is required of you; and now who will own what you have prepared?'

Now listen to how Jesus ends that parable, He says, "So is the man who stores up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God."

If there was a thought that I wanted for you to take home with you from last week’s message, it would be, “Make every effort to become rich toward God! Pursue Jesus with reckless abandon to this world and its desires and then you will truly become rich!”

If my objective from last week’s message was to convey to you the understanding of how great we are to value and treasure the Lord and our relationship with Him as we walk with Him in the Kingdom, then my objective today, with this message, is to give you a very brief glimpse into how He values you and what it cost Him to bring you into the Kingdom!

How many of you know and understand that when you can see the real cost of a gift and you know that it came with personal loss or sacrifice to give it to you, then that gift is valued an treasured in your heart?

Do you remember the story, The Gift of the Magi?

It is the story of a young married couple, Jim and Della, who are basically poor, but completely and totally in love.

Della has long, beautiful hair and Jim has a fairly expensive gold pocket watch. These are the only two things that they have that are of any real value to them.

It is Christmas Eve and Della has only $1.87 fo ra gift for her husband. So, she does the only thing that she can and goes and has her knee length hair cut off and sold for $20. She then buys him a nice platinum watch chain.

When he comes home and she greets him at the door, his face shows surprise and dismay, at the sight of her short hair. She cannot understand why, until he gives her his gift to her, which was a set of beautiful combs for her hair that she had been wanting forever.

At the sight of the combs, she bursts out into tears and several minutes later gives him his gift, thenice watch chain.

He then shares with her that he had sold his gold watch, in orderto buy her the hair combs!

Each had given their greatest possesion, in order to buy the other a gift.

Their individual gift cost them dearly and thus, were looked upon with great value by the other!

So, today, we are looking at the GREAT cost that the Lord gave, in order that you and I might come into His kingdom!

This cost was unlike anything that we could ever imagine and yet it was given freely to offer us a plce within His kingdom!

Well, just to make sure that we are on the same page when talking about the kingdom of God, we need to have a clear understanding as to what the kingdom of God really is, right?

A kingdom, in our natural understanding, is a realm where a king has dominion and rule over the inhabitants of the borders of that kingdom, right?

Well, it is similar to the kingdom of God. God, is the king and everywhere that He reigns supreme is part of His kingdom. The one prerequisite to coming into this kingdom, is that is has to be done through the Son, Jesus the Christ.

There is no other way into the kingdom, except through HIm. “I am the way, the truth and the life.”

In Jesus told Nicodemus, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”

In order to be a part of the kingdom of God, you must be spiritually reborn through the shed blood of Jesus!

Once you and I come into the kingdom though our rebirth, then we are now a geographical part of the kingdom, because God reigns over us and thus, He is reigning over His kingdom!

EVERYONE SAY, “I AM A PART OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD!”

As long as we allow God to reign and rule over our lives, then we are living in and operating as part of His Kingdom, here on earth. This means that we must let go of what we value more here in order that His kingdom comes and His will is dome in our lives.

Billy Graham tells the story about a little child the was playing with a very valuable vase. He put his hand into it and could not withdraw it. His father too, tried his best to get it out, to no avail. They were thinking of breaking the vase when the father said, “Now my son, make one more try. Open your hand and hold your fingers out straight as you see me doing, and then pull.” To their astonishment the little fellow said, “O no, dad, I couldn’t put my fingers out like that because if I did I would drop my dime.” So many of us are holding onto the world with one hand (the dime) and struggling with our grip on the more valuable possession, the kingdom of God (the vase)!

In Matthew’s gospel, chapter 13, Jesus began teaching the multitudes using His parabolic method of lessons.

In chapter 13, we see Jesus teaching a series of 7 parables that are explicitly given to yield some understanding about, not only the Kingdom of Heaven, but also the great value that He finds in each one of us for His kingdom!

BEGIN TO EXPLAIN THE FLOW OF THE PARABLES IN .

Once you get to the Hidden Treasure mention the follwoing:

I think that everyone loves the idea of finding a hidden treasure. I can’t tell you how many books and stories of legend have been written and movies made off of these, because we love the idea of finding a hidden TREASURE! Right?!

Hidden Treasure The Smith House in Dahlonega, Georgia, has been sitting on a gold mine for more than a century. During renovation of the landmark hotel back in February of 2006, workers discovered the entrance to a four-foot wide hole under the concrete floor in the main dining room. The hole goes straight down nineteen feet to the entrance to a gold mine under the building.

Captain Frank Hall built the house in 1884. As legend has it, the city would not permit Hall to dig for gold on the property, partly because it was too close to the downtown square and partly because he was a Yankee. It would appear that he built the house to cover-up his mining operation until his health failed and he sold the land.

"We never would have known it if we hadn’t chipped up the concrete,” Chris Welch, the owner of the hotel, said.

For many years, the owners have joked with patrons that they were “sitting on a gold mine”. They had no idea just how true a statement that really was.

In the hidden treasure, nothing has changed from the previous parables that Jesus established the criteria for: the man represented is still the Son of Man (Jesus) and the field is still the world.

There are many that teach that treasure is Jesus, HImself, or that it is gospel message, or even the kingdom itself.

In each of these teachings, we would see the same understanding from the whole parable: the person finds them and then goes and sells everything that he has to buy the whole field so that he can aquire and protect them.

Here is the problem with these understandings:

The treasure cannot be Jesus, because Jesus doesn’t discover Jesus and then go buy Himself. In fact, HE sells himself; makes Himself the ransom payment!

Whether you’re talking about the gospel or the kingdom being the treasure that is discovered, the underlying pattern remains the same: the person buys them to haver them.

Undertstand this: you and I cannot buy Jesus, or buy the understanding of the gospel or buy into the kingdom of God!

I understand that we are to forsake oursleves and our desires for this world and the cares of this world and take up our cross and follow Jesus, but we CANNOT buy, at any cost our way into the kingdom!

So, then, what is this great discovered treasure that is found?

Well, if you look back into the Old Testament God declares something that begins to make sense of what we see here.

God says, “Now if you will obey me and keep my covenant, you will be my own special treasure from among all the peoples on earth; for all the earth belongs to me.”

Then in , He says, “ For the Lord has chosen Jacob for himself, Israel for his own special treasure.”

Do you see it in both of these, Israel was the nation that God chose out of the world, to be His own special TREASURE.

Then in , God says, “

Malachi 3:16–18 NLT

Then those who feared the Lord spoke with each other, and the Lord listened to what they said. In his presence, a scroll of remembrance was written to record the names of those who feared him and always thought about the honor of his name. “They will be my people,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. “On the day when I act in judgment, they will be my own special treasure. I will spare them as a father spares an obedient child. Then you will again see the difference between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not.”

It is interesting, that alothough the word used for treaure in all 3 of these passages is the same, however, in the Malachi verse there is a special meaning that applies only to it.

In , when God refers to these people being His own special treasure, the word also means, that they will be His JEWELS!

Who are these people? Well, in we read, “ But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy.”

The Lord has broadened from just Israel, to those who would fear Him and honor His name; those who were once not a people, but now are!

Listen to how Paul says it in , “ Don’t forget that you Gentiles used to be outsiders. You were called “uncircumcised heathens” by the Jews, who were proud of their circumcision, even though it affected only their bodies and not their hearts. In those days you were living apart from Christ. You were excluded from citizenship among the people of Israel, and you did not know the covenant promises God had made to them. You lived in this world without God and without hope. But now you have been united with Christ Jesus. Once you were far away from God, but now you have been brought near to him through the blood of Christ.”

We, gentiles and Jews alike, because of the shed blood of Jesus, have become ONE body that is the body of Christ; THE CHURCH!

In the second parable that Jesus gives to the disciples, He expands, He becomes more specificabout the value of us.

In the next parable, Jesus doesn’t say that someone found a treasure, mix of gold, or coins and jewels; no, rather He says that the man, (Jesus), is looking for a specific and highly valuable object, A PEARL.

Why a pearl?

When a pearl was found in ancient times, a pearl that was of perfection and beauty would be worth literally an unnamed price, incredibly valuable. So valuable are they that the Jewish Talmud says, “Pearls are beyond price.” So valuable were they that the Egyptians actually worshiped the pearl and this came over into Roman life. So valuable were they that when women wanted to show their wealth, according to , they put pearls on their head.

And it was said of one lady by the name of Lollia Paulina, the wife of the emperor Caligula, that at one event, she had $36 million worth of pearls all over her. In fact, the historian says she had pearls on her head, she had pearls on her hair, she had pearls on her ears, she had pearls on her neck and she had pearls on her fingers.

And when the Roman emperors wanted to demonstrate their incredible wealth and show how filthy rich they were, they dissolved pearls in vinegar and drank them in their wine. So pearls were very valuable.

This is why Jesus used the analogy of the man looking for pearls; they were of EXTREME value in their day and age.

And with this more focused and intensified search that He shows the disciples and us, it gives us a much greater understanding of how valuable we are to Him.

He is looking for you and I, specifically; the greatest and most valued of all items!

A good understanding for us, swith this analogy, wold be that of the diamond.

So, if we’re going to compare ourselves to diamonds, how much is a diamond worth anyway? In 2013, a nearly 60-carat flawless pink diamond called the "Pink Star" was auctioned by Sotheby’s for a whopping $83.2 million! That made it the most expensive jewel or diamond ever sold at auction.

But the most precious diamond, we’re told, is the Koh-i-Noor, now part of the British Crown Jewels collection. Experts say this gem cannot be valued — it’s calculated to be approximately

But the most precious diamond, ever, is the Koh-i-Noor, now part of the British Crown Jewels collection. Experts say this gem cannot be valued, the Pink Star was around 60 carats and this one is over 100 carats! Its calculated worth, is said to be approximately $12 BILLION dollars!

The Bible tells us that we are of great value to God. (READ VERSES)

Here is the thing guys, in and of ourselves, we can do nothing. God loves us, even when we are apart from Him, but when we come into His kingdom, our value goes through the roof. We go from ordinary, to extrordinary and all because of the One who saves us and empowers us!

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