The Greatest Treasure

Matthew 13:44-53

Here we have two short parables that are only found in Matthew. The first one is of a man probably working in a field that discovered a hidden treasure. Finding the treasure appears to be by chance. Situations that would call for someone to bury their treasure could be: going away on a journey, during a time of war to keep soldiers from looting. In a land frequently ravaged as Palestine, many people doubtless buried their treasures, but to actually find a treasure would happen once in a thousand lifetimes. This man happened to stumble upon this treasure.

ILL: When I was a child I used to dream about finding buried or hidden treasure. All of us as children have had that dream at one time or another. We often read stories of someone inadvertently finding a treasure. This story was in the news this last week. Elizabeth Gibson didn't know anything about the brightly colored abstract work she spotted on her morning walk four years ago on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Sotheby's auction house will be selling the work next month for the original owner.

It turned out that it was a 1970 painting titled (Three People) by a famous Mexican artist, whose work has soared in value in recent years.

A Houston couple purchased the work in 1977. It was stolen in 1987 from a warehouse where they had placed it while moving. Sotheby's senior vice president of Impressionist and modern art, said in an interview Tuesday that the husband paid $55,000 for it as a gift for his wife. He said it could bring up to $1 million when it is sold at an Art auction on Nov. 20. Gibson will receive the $15,000 reward the couple put up when it was stolen, plus an undisclosed percentage of the sale of the painting.

The Bible says that for joy the man sells all that he has and buys the field. This is a very necessary step because of the laws of the day. Rabbinic law stipulated that if a workman came on a treasure in the field and lifted it out, it would belong to his master. But here the man is careful not to lift it out until he has bought the field.

The second parable is about a merchant seeking costly pearls. This man differs from the first in that while the first man stumbled upon the treasure, this one was looking for the treasure he found. A merchant - strictly was one who travels about for trading, merchant, wholesale dealer. When this man found a pearl that was far more valuable than he apparently expected to find, he sold all of his possessions and bought the pearl of great price.

The first man stumbled upon a great treasure and was somehow able to scrape enough money up to buy the field and keep the treasure. He could sell a little of the treasure and recoup his money. The second man was looking specifically for pearls and when finding one of great price sold everything that he had with no way of recouping his money, he just owned the valuable pearl. These two parables are dealing with the way to salvation and our attitude towards it.

Proposition: The Kingdom of Heaven is the greatest treasure we will ever have, therefore we need understand how to get it and place the proper value on salvation.

I. The Kingdom is found through the Illumination of the Holy Spirit
“A natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God,” Paul tells us; “for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised” (1 Cor. 2:14). In his next letter to Corinth the apostle further explains that “the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Cor. 4:4). Even when the truth of the gospel is clearly presented to him, the natural man cannot see it. As long as he resists the moving of God’s Spirit on his heart, he cannot see past the spiritual blinders Satan has placed over his eyes. He is completely content to seek his ephemeral pleasures and the things which can never satisfy, considering the trinkets of the world to be of great value and the gospel of salvation to be worthless.
The treasure of salvation is not obvious to men, and it is therefore not something they naturally seek. They do not understand why it is so prized by Christians and why some people give up so much-their self-dependency, sinful pleasures, and sometimes even their social, political, and economic freedom and welfare-to gain what seems to be so little. They cannot understand why believers willingly live by standards of ethics and morality that go against man’s deepest drives and lusts. The way of the kingdom is narrow and unattractive to the natural man, and that is why so few find it or desire to walk in it once it is found.

II. Salvation Results in the Only Real Joy
The Bible says that “for the joy thereof” he sold all that he had and bought the field. Integral to the Christian life is joy. Romans 5:2-3 (KJV) 2By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; Romans 14:17 (KJV) 17For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. Paul wrote from prison, Philippians 4:4 (KJV) 4Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice. The Christian life begins with the joy of knowing that your sins are forgiven. It continues with the joy of relationship with Jesus Christ and at the end of time there will be joy for evermore. Revelation 21:4, “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.”

III. Salvation Can Only Be Gained Individually
Notice that in the parables each man had to transact individually. They didn’t send a servant or an employee; they had to make the purchase themselves. This is consistent with Biblical teaching on individual salvation and accountability. Romans 14:12 tells us, 12So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God. Each one of us whether saved or lost will one day stand before the almighty God. Listen to how Peter describes the lost 1 Peter 4:4-5 (KJV) 4Wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you: 5Who shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead.
Not only shall we give individual account unto God, but we only get into the kingdom by individual transaction. Romans 10:13 says (KJV) 13For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. We do not get to heaven because of our church membership, or because our parents were Christians, or because someone is going to pray for us after death. We get to heaven by coming to God and confessing our sin and trusting in Jesus saving work for us on the cross.

The parable indicates that there are two ways to find the kingdom

A. Some stumble upon without having looked for it.
This was the man mentioned in the field. He was much like the biography that Paul gave of his conversion. In Acts Paul was suddenly confronted by the Lord Jesus on the road to Damascus. He seemingly wasn’t looking for God, but the Lord had prepared his heart to receive the Gospel. Some of you may have been like this.

B. Some look diligently before finding it.
An example of the second man was the Ethiopian eunuch, who was searching the scriptures for the meaning of the Messianic prophecies. God sent Philip along to instruct him on the way of salvation. Some of you were much like this man.

IV. Salvation Must Have Its Value Properly Assessed – it’s Priceless
So the parable deals with the value of the treasure, which is worth the price of sacrifice. When the man buys the field at such a sacrifice, he possesses far more than the price paid. While the inheritance we receive is priceless, there is still a cost associated with following Jesus Christ. Jesus said in Mark 8:34-35 (KJV) “Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. 35For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it.” The kingdom of heaven is worth infinitely more than the cost of discipleship, and those who know where the treasure lies joyfully abandon everything else to secure it.

The problem with many is that they are not willing to pay the price of discipleship. We don’t pursue Jesus at all costs. We are not willing to suffer a little discomfort in order to please our savior. While our salvation is priceless, we don’t treat it that way. This really is another indication that you may not have salvation to begin with.

ILL: Since my days in college I have been fascinated by the story of Mel Fisher, who was probably the most famous of all American treasure hunters. A pioneer in scuba diving, he became fascinated by buried treasure in the ocean. After spending several years discovering treasure from a Spanish treasure fleet that sunk in 1715, he became fascinated with the much richer promise of a Spanish treasure fleet that sank in 1622 in the Florida Keys. So in 1968 he began to search for the lost 1622 fleet. He moved to Key West and lived in a house boat.

By 1971, the trail picked up.A young underwater photographer who had just joined the crew, discovered an 8-1/2 foot gold chain. It was not until two years later that Mel's son Kane found a silver bar inscribed with numbers that matched the Spanish manifest of the sunken boats. Over the next two years there were more finds large and small, valuable and ordinary, but not the mother lode.

On July 13, 1975, Mel's oldest son Dirk found 5 bronze cannons from the Atocha, but a week later tragedy struck. A salvage boat capsized during the night and Dirk, his wife Angel passed away. Over the next ten years, more exciting discoveries were made, including thousands of gold coins, magnificent jewelry, and in 1980 a large section of one of the 1622 boats, the Santa Margarita. The main cargo for the Atocha, however the Motherlode still eluded Mel and his team. They kept searching.

On Memorial Day weekend in 1985, 17 years after they began looking, they found a cache of 13 gold bars, 4 pieces of gold jewelry set with emeralds, a gold chain, and numerous coins. On July 20, a magnetometer contact indicated a large target on the seabed. Divers went down and discovered a reef of silver bars! During the next two years they uncovered the rest of the wreck.

Estimates of the wreck’s value sat at a half a billion dollars. Among the discoveries were 127,000 silver coins; more than 900 silver bars averaging nearly 70 pounds apiece; more than 700 high-quality emeralds and roughly 2,500 lighter stones; over 250 pounds of gold bars, discs, bits, and lengths of heavy gold chain; and hundreds of items of jewelry, silverware, crucifixes, and gold coins.

Mel Fisher spent 19 years, living out of a houseboat, braving sharks and storms, lost the life of one of his sons, just to find a buried treasure here on earth. Jesus said, that the kingdom of heaven is worth infinitely more, and those who know where the treasure lies joyfully abandon everything else to secure it. Are you abandoning everything for a treasure that will last for eternity?