Find What is Precious and Share It

Find What is Precious and Share It Matthew 13:44–52 (NIV84) 44 “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.” 45 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. 46 When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.” 47 “Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. 48 When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away. 49 This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous 50 and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” 51 “Have you understood all these things?” Jesus asked. “Yes,” they replied. 52 He said to them, “Therefore every teacher of the law who has been instructed about the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old.” This morning we have listened to three parables. Parables have two primary purposes: Parables hide and expose. First, parables hide the truth from those who will not bow to Christ and His instruction; and second, parables expose the truth to those who by God’s grace will bow to Jesus and His authority. In his commentary on The Gospel of Matthew (2001:245–246), James Montgomery Boice addresses a distortion of Reformed faith that takes issue with the doctrines of election and irresistible grace. This caricature imagines a situation where someone doesn’t want to be saved. He loves sin and never looks at life outside its parameters. He has heard the gospel of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ but has no interest in it. But God has elected this person. So, although he doesn’t want to be saved, he is nevertheless dragged by the scruff of his neck into heaven “kicking and screaming,” a reluctant convert. On the other hand, a second individual wants to be saved. Every time she hears the gospel, she is delighted by it. Whenever an invitation is given, she is the first one out of her seat. But God has not elected her. She wants to be saved, but she cannot be saved. God says to her, “this salvation of mine through Christ is not for you. It is for others. You must remain where you are. You cannot come to heaven.” This characterisation is a misinterpretation of Reformed faith, for in election and “irresistible” grace God does not disrespect or act against the will of any man or woman. No, He renews the person, and consequently, a will is born that wants what the old will previously hated. Before, the man hated Christ. Now he loves Him and comes willingly when the gospel is preached. This is true for the second example too. If the woman desires to come, it is not despite God’s intention but because of it. Boice starts his commentary on our Scripture passage this way because the prior work of God in a person’s heart is the underlying presupposition of the parables of the treasure and the pearl. These parables describe the kind of people who have already been made alive in Christ. To use the imagery of the first two parables, they are the ones in whom the seed of the gospel has already been planted and is beginning to bear fruit. The first two parables, Luke 13:44-46, go together. In the first, a man finds a treasure in a field. “When [he] found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field” (13:44) In the second, Jesus describes a merchant looking for pearls. “When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it” (13:46). These parables are unique to Matthew. Both stress the immeasurable value of God’s kingdom: it is worth any sacrifice. Both emphasise the cost of gaining it: it will cost all we have. The point of these parables lies in the nature and the consequent action of those who discover the gospel. They show the radical nature of discipleship. The paradox is: (1) Salvation comes by God’s grace alone and is free (Romans 3:24; 5:15; 6:23; Ephesians 2:8–9), yet (2) it costs believers everything (Luke 10:34–39; 13:44, 46). In our first parable, a labourer found a treasure. He found it by accident. There he was, working, as usual, expecting little, going through the routine as he ploughed the field. And then, unexpectedly, his ploughshare hit something. He dug it up, opened it, and valuable gems gushed from it! He was ecstatic and hurriedly hid it again until he could go and buy the field. Unethical? Not by Jewish law. “If a man finds scattered money, it belongs to the finder,” said the rabbis. Or like we say: “Finders Keepers”. The point of the parable is clear. Some people discover the worth of the kingdom by accident. They are ploughing the familiar furrow of life when suddenly, against all expectation, they find treasure. What a marvellous picture of discovering Jesus! He is worth any sacrifice to secure. In the second parable, a rich man found a pearl of great value. He found it after a long and persistent search. This man knew perfection when he saw it. And he never had seen something like this until he discovered this pearl. There are other pearls in the market. There are other things of great value. But nothing can compare in value with this pearl. That is how some people find the kingdom of God. They try many faiths, many ideologies, and they gain much from them. But one day they find the loveliest thing in all the world (the message of salvation through faith in Jesus), and they give all to gain it. Think, for instance of Justin of Flavia Neapolis [today it is known as Nablus], who became known as Justin the Martyr. He was a brilliant professor who had tried all the philosophical schools, the Stoics, the Peripatetics, the Pythagoreans, the Platonists, and remained unsatisfied. Then, one day, he met a little old Syrian Christian in the fields who told him about Jesus. He immediately started reading the Scriptures to see if this was so. After a long search, he had found the pearl of great value. He became convinced that it was, and he became a joyful Christian. Later in his life, this faith led to martyrdom. When Justin was arrested for his faith in Rome in 165 A.D., the prefect asked him to denounce his faith by making a sacrifice to the gods. Justin replied, "No one who is rightly minded turns from true belief to false. I fell in love with the prophets and these men who had loved Christ; I reflected on all their words and found that this philosophy alone was true and profitable.” In these matters the poor man who discovered the treasure and the merchant who found the pearl are identical. They make every effort to possess what they found. There is a contrast that should not be overlooked, however. The man who found the hidden treasure was not looking for it—his discovery was what we would call an accident—but in the case of the merchant, the finding of the pearl was the result of a long and faithful quest. So, the message of these parables is clear: People find the kingdom in many ways. Some come upon it by accident, some after a long and patient search. Regardless of how they find it, it is of exceptional worth. It is a great treasure and a beautiful pearl. It is worth any sacrifice. This is the main lesson of these parables: Although the early experiences of these two men were different, once they found the treasure, the gospel, they acted in similar ways. What did they do? (1) They recognised the value of what they had found. (2) They unwaveringly decided to have it. (3) They sold everything they possess to make their purchase. (4) They followed through on their decision until they acquired the treasure. Nothing in the stories should be taken as teaching that salvation can be bought, except in the sense of Isaiah 55:1: “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.” But if that is the case, what is the point of the man and the merchant selling their goods? It is a picture of surrendering everything that might be an obstruction to getting the prize. Did the disciples of Matthew’s day realise this? Did they teach it? We are inclined to say that a person who discovers treasure anywhere or in any form and then walks away from it is a fool. But many do that with the gospel. The gospel is preached; it is the answer to all our individual and community needs, for this life and eternity. But despite that fact, millions just walk away and continue to be spiritually poor. Do you want to know the character of one who has been made alive by God? He says with David, “I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked” (Psalm 84:10). He says of God’s laws, “They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold” (Psalm 19:10). He declares, “Because I love your commands more than gold, more than pure gold, and because I consider all your precepts right, I hate every wrong path” (Psalm 119:127–28). He cries, “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13–14). What Will Be Your Response Then? The third parable is also unique to Matthew. It brings this remarkable series to an end. Why is this parable included? Is there anything new in this last parable? We might think that the new element is our role in drawing men and women into the gospel net, but that is not the way Jesus interprets his story. He compares the fishermen to angels, not to his earthly messengers, and the setting is not the age of gospel proclamation but the judgment. As we make the comparisons, there is a point at which the repetition itself becomes the “new” thing, and the unique emphasis is not so much in what is repeated but in what is left out. There is no explanation of how the fish got into the water in the first place. Nothing is said about their growth or lack of it. There are no human workers, not even a devil. The only thing we have is the separation of the good fish from the bad, the wicked from the righteous, and the suffering of those who are cast into hell. The only new element is the warning to the wicked. It is as though Jesus is saying with all possible emphasis: “There is a coming judgment, and the fate of the ungodly will be terrible in that day.” If the first two parables had challenged the hearers to reflect on what their response to Jesus was now, this third parable challenged them about their perseverance until the last day. Where will they stand on the last day? This third parable is all about judgment, about separation. There is no trace in Matthew of any doctrine that we can have instant salvation apart from constant perseverance. We must be righteous to live with the Righteous One. There are no short cuts. Within the church we shall always find good and bad, real and unreal. And although we have been told in the parable of the weeds not to expect a perfect world or church on earth and not to make our judgment now, the day will come when God will make his final separation. It is not yet. It will be when the net of the kingdom is drawn to the shore. And it will be God who does the sorting then, not people now. Let the Christian “teachers of the law” in Matthew’s church remember that. It is not for them now to determine who are ‘the real Christians’ in the church in which they live and work. That task belongs to God in the future. It may well be that Judas is in the back of Matthew’s mind here. His defection caused a disturbance in the early church. That someone so close to Jesus could betray him was almost absurd. “If you think you are standing firm,” Paul was to say soon afterwards, “be careful that you don’t fall!” The case of Judas was the standing warning against presumption. At the end, when the Lord calls for me, what will my response be then? That is the question. And the series of parables which began with a rejection of the word by human souls ends with the denial of human souls by God. “Have you understood all these things?” asks Jesus at the end of this series of parables (13:51). They answered, “Yes.” Boice finds that answer amusing, since the parables of the kingdom have always been one of the most puzzling sections of the Word of God to most readers. Hardly anyone today would dare to say that he or she understands all these things. But the disciples thought they did. “Yes,” they said as if the matter were not at all difficult. They replied, “Yes, somehow. We see. We hear. We understand.” Jesus then answered that school is still in session: “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure [who brings out the gospel of the kingdom, 13:44] what is new and what is old” (13:52). Here Jesus says not only, “Have you been given?” but “Are you giving?” If you have been given understanding (if you grasp the secrets of the kingdom), if you have become a “scribe” trained in the truths of the kingdom, then you must share your treasures with others. You must bring the treasures out and share them. For “to whom much was given … much [is] required” (Luke 12:48). We have been given much indeed! We have been given the gospel for free. And freely we should give this good news to others. We should act like Stephen in Acts 7. Before he was martyred, Stephen spoke from the old revelation about the new revelation in Jesus—the good news, but also the latest report that in the man Jesus Christ the temple has been replaced. When Jesus returns, He does not come to erase all that we gained in life before we met Him. He comes to enrich it. Believers will be able to draw truths from the Old Testament as well as Jesus’ teachings (Romans 4:23–24; 15:4; 1 Corinthians 10:6, 11; 2 Timothy 3:16). The poor man who found the treasure and the merchant who discovered the pearl acted quickly to secure possession. But the thirds parable reminds us that once you possess the greatest treasure of them all – faith – you don’t keep it for yourself, no, you use it by sharing it! Jesus said, “Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them” (John 13:17). That’s what becoming a Christian is about: when our deepest needs are met, when our deepest longings are satisfied, when our deepest hurts are bandaged, and when we possess a future and a hope unlike any other, we spend everything we have to share it with those who are still searching for it. It is this sharing that leads to indescribable joy! If your faith is grim and your life bleak, let God put some of this happiness back where it should be. If you have not yet trusted in Jesus as your Lord, grab this precious pearl today. Let us not grow weary in doing so. Let us not grow tired in our gratitude for the greatest gift of all. And let us not grow weary in giving the gift, in sharing the treasure of Jesus, to those who are still searching. For that is part of the purpose of these parables. Friends, I’m closing this morning reminding you that Jesus wants us to understand God’s truth. This is not easily obtained or quickly done. Learning about God’s truth (in all its richness and diversity) is a lifelong process. Remember that learning is also a way to serve God. Let your life be full of inquiry and let each step be a means of deepening your faith and love for God. Do you understand these things? Then commit yourself to Jesus Christ, promising to follow him as your Master, Lord, and Saviour and to share this treasure with all who journey through life with you. Amen.