OF THE KINGDOM SEASON 3 | Week 10 — Discovered, Discerned, Decisively Pursued

good morning everybody, so good to see you all. Let's pray. Lord we love you. We revel in the truth that you love us. This morning I ask a father that you would fill us a fresh with that knowledge of your love, how deep, how wide, how high is the love of God for us. I pray, Lord, for those of us who have never encountered the love of God that today would be the day. And I pray for those of us who have grown familiar with the love of God that today we would repent indeed and allow ourselves to be touched afresh by your spirit. We love you God. We love you God. We love you God. No God's people said. We are in Matthew 13 and today I am going to be preaching two lines for us. Pray for your girl. Okay. The kingdom of heaven, Matthew 13 verses 44 to 46. Matthew 13 verses 44 to 46. The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it he hid it again and in his joy he went and sold all he had and bought that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls. When he found one very precious pearl he went away and sold all he had and bought it. This is the word of the Lord. We've been exploring the parables of Jesus in Matthew 13 in our series of the kingdom. This passage occurs in the midst of the period of time in which the conflict between Jesus and the religious leaders has come to a head. Jesus has boldly declared the kingdom of God to be at hand through his arrival. He has taught on the truth of the kingdom and demonstrated its power through healing the sick and delivering the oppressed and the possessed. They the religious leaders have falsely accused him of breaking the law of Moses and of doing his work by the power of the devil. Jesus has strongly rebuked them, showing that he is perfect in keeping with the law and that what he has done could only be done by the power of God. So at the beginning of the chapter Jesus is teaching the multitudes using parables, revealing truth to his followers while at the same time concealing truth from his enemies, though both heard the same thing. So far he has taught about the true nature of the kingdom. Thank you. In multiple parables with his teachings being in direct contrast to what first century Jews would have expected the arrival of the kingdom of God to look like. And these are the parables that we've gone through thus far. In the parable of the sower and the soils, instead of the Messiah conquering hearts by force, the kingdom comes as a vulnerable seed that can be rejected, ignored or choked out by worldly cares. In the parable of the wheat and the weeds, instead of an immediate violent purging of Rome and all sinners, the Messiah allows evil and righteousness to grow side by side until a delayed final judgment. In the parable of the master's seed, instead of a sudden and spectacular event breaking into history, the kingdom arrives in an insignificant, tiny and easily overlooked package. In the parable of the leaven, instead of an external political and military revolution, the kingdom spreads through a quiet, invisible and internal transformation of society. In verse 36 of chapter 13, Jesus leaves the crowd and enters a hall where he continues to teach his disciples. Today's parables form part of that teaching and they add a necessary dimension to the disciples' understanding of the kingdom by teaching on its immeasurable worth. Parables are powerful literary devices. They are unassuming in that there are short stories that capture a commonplace human experience. Yet, they use analogy to teach a moral or spiritual or philosophical truth. The first parable that Jesus tells is about a man who finds a treasure in a field. Though that may sound unlikely to us, finding a treasure buried in a field was a realistic possibility to his audience. In the ancient Mediterranean world, burying valuables in the ground was a recognized method of safe keeping, particularly during periods of political instability, invasion or displacement. There were no banks or safes for one to keep their money or their valuables in. It wasn't uncommon that people who buried their valuables might die or be forced into exile before retrieving them. Buried money and jewelry then could remain undiscovered for years until someone encountered them while working the land. This is what happened with this man in this parable. He was likely a worker or a tenant farmer working for an absentee land owner. While working the land, he found a treasure. A treasure significant enough in value that he proceeded to hide it and went off to sell everything that he owned so that he could purchase the land that the treasure was in. In that context, legally, if treasure was discovered on another person's property, the treasure would automatically belong to the land owner. So, the man knowing this decided not to remove the treasure from the field, but instead acquire the field. Purchasing the field therefore provided the man with the way to, as my friends and I say, all the time, secure the bag. The second parable is told in parallel to the first. In the parable, merchant finds a pearl of great price and all his years of trade. Having seen and valued many a pearl, he sees this one and determines that it is of immeasurable value. Such great value that he, too, goes off and sells everything that he has to be able to purchase this one pearl or great price. Pearls were among the most highly prized luxury possessions in that day. High quality pearls were difficult and dangerous to obtain, often requiring divers to hold their breath to retrieve them from the sea using very basic tools. Their rarity and beauty made them symbols of extraordinary wealth and exceptional pearl, therefore, represented a level of value readily understood by Jesus's original audience. As simple as these parables appear, Jesus uses them to reveal truth about the kingdom of God. This morning I have three principles of the kingdom that I would like to offer for our consideration. The first is, the kingdom is discovered. The kingdom of heaven is discovered. The second is, the kingdom is discerned. The third is, the kingdom is decisively pursued. The kingdom discovered, the kingdom discerned, and the kingdom decisively pursued. Let's look at our first principle. The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls. We see two men encounter the kingdom in two different ways. The first man comes across a treasure in the course of his ordinate. life. He is digging in a field, going about his work when he unexpectedly finds something of extraordinary value. He wasn't necessarily looking for it, he wasn't following a map with an X mocking the spot. It is as though the treasure emerges in the ordinary. The second man, however, is a merchant whose life is built around seeking things of value. Because he's a pearl merchant, we can safely assume he has encountered other pearls and valuable things before. He is actively searching and in the course of that search, he comes across a pearl unlike any ever. It is as though the pearl emerges in his seeking. One man encounters the kingdom unexpectedly in the ordinary, while the other man encounters it through intentional seeking. We see in one man that the ordinary life is not an obstacle to encountering God. I love that so much. The ordinary life is not an obstacle to encountering God. In fact, it would seem that God hides the good news of the kingdom in the ordinary. Jesus, the Son of God, descends from a lineage of largely very ordinary men and women, is conceived by the spirit in the womb of an ordinary young girl, and he arrives in the world in the most ordinary way as an infant fully reliant on his mother. We see in Jesus the extraordinary hidden in the very ordinary. For a couple of years now, I have endeavoured to go on an annual silent solo retreat. I know that for some of you that sounds terrifying, but every year I am amazed at how God meets me in the ordinaryness of silence. It says though, the truth that has always been there becomes distinctly discoverable, it's almost as though the kingdom is veiled or hidden and when I go into the silence, God unveils the kingdom to me and I discover something of the kingdom. Again, that's always been there. The treasure in the field, it's always been there, but now he discovers it. The man in this parable has very likely worked this field or another field similar to it before. Much like the silence, there is nothing extraordinary about this field, but on this day he discovers something in the field and when he discovers it, he doesn't arrive to a fully revealed treasure on the contrary. He has to unearth it in order to perceive it. He has to dig it out of the ground to see what it is and when he sees it, he can then say, "I have found a treasure. The kingdom of heaven is like that hidden in the ordinary, discovered in the ordinary, unearthed in order to be perceived." It's so important that in discovering the kingdom, you must dig it out. It is not sufficient for you to see it from afar when it comes out of hiddenness as it were when it makes itself discoverable to you. It is your responsibility to unearth it so that you can see what it is and be able to determine. Is this a treasure hidden, discovered, unearthed and perceived? So we see that the kingdom can be discovered in the ordinary, but we also see that the kingdom can be discovered in the diligent seeking of it. The merchant is a seeker. In the Greek to seek is to search for, to desire, to require, to demand. His desire is so pointed and so thorough that his whole life is ordered around the search. His desire requires and demands his life to be lived in search of fulfilling it. That is this desire. This morning, may I put it to you that your life is ordered around the search. In other words, you have a desire that your internal life is organized around and you are in fact in search of the one thing that will finally finally meet your deepest desire. The merchant is looking for something of value and his search only ends when he finds this great pearl. You too are in a search of something of value and your search will only end when you finally find the one thing of such immeasurable value that all the other things you may have found along the way pale in comparison. Friends, what have you found along the way? Have you found money along the way? Have you found prestige along the way? Have you found influence and power along the way? Have you found marriage along the way? Have you found loneliness along the way? Have you found depression along the way? Have you found brokenness along the way? What have you found along the way? When Jesus teaches about seeking in other places in the gospel, He teaches that seeking is marked by priorities and persistence. Priorities and persistence Matthew 633, but seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added to you. Priorities, Matthew 7, 7-8, it's 7-8, ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find knock and it will be open to you for everyone who asks receives and the one who seeks finds and to the one who knocks it will be opened, persistence. We see this in the merchant. He prioritizes his search of pearls and is persistent in his search and in this parable he searches for the kingdom and he indeed finds it. Now it's really important that you don't hear me saying that it's because of his seeking that he discovers the kingdom. Yeah? It's not because of his effort of seeking that he discovers the kingdom but rather that it is in his seeking that he discovers the kingdom. The kingdom is not a geographical tangible place or something that humans can locate or discover through their own merits or through their own strength or through their own independent effort or their own searching. Because it is the active present reality of God's personal rule, God Himself unveils it and makes it available through Christ. If the kingdom is to be discovered, it is revealed by the king himself. It is a hidden realm as Dallas Willard said where our true life is hidden with Christ in God entirely bypassing our physical radar until our hearts are transformed by God. Something needs to happen in order for us to discover the kingdom. That's either really, really good news but for those of us who love putting in that effort so that we can say God look what I have done. Now show me. Now show me your power. Now show me your ability. Now show me what you will do to me. Do for me. I've put in all this effort and I've heard of this kingdom of yours and I believe now what? It is the grace of God. It is the grace of God that you would even be able to glimpse the hiddenness of his kingdom. The scripture speaks about how angels even long to peer into this mystery of this gospel. It cannot be that we're so sophisticated and we're so smart and we're so learned and we put in so much effort that finally when we have done everything to ascend we ascend and we discover this kingdom. It is not. It is because the King himself chooses to reveal himself to us but when he reveals his kingdom you must engage as it were. You must unearth it. You must engage with it in such a way that you would be able to see and know what it is. Sitting in church pews is not enough. You must give yourself to knowing this kingdom. In order for the kingdom to be discovered, it must be revealed. Again, the kingdom of heaven is discovered. The second principle that we glean from these parables is that the kingdom is discerned. I love this word discern. The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field when a man founded, he hid it again, and in his joy he went and sold all he had. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, and when he found one of great value, he went away and sold all that he had. To discover the kingdom is one thing. To measure it against everything you have and recognize that it is more valuable is another. But to recognize its value and then sell everything you have to acquire it. This is the invitation of this parable. Sell everything. Sell everything. Sell everything. The resources you've accumulated, the things that you value, the life that you built. These men must make a judgment is what I have found worth more than everything I currently possess. It's very possible that in taking inventory they could conceivably change their minds. They could decide that what they already have is more valuable, more securing, more desirable than what they have found. Let me ask you this question this morning. When was the last time you took stock of what you truly value? When was the last time you took the time to peer into your soul to see the things that have most value of most worth to you? Given that this is a parable, the question is less about your net worth and more about what you consider to be of value. It is less about your calculations and more about your discernment. Discernment, like I said, is one of my most favorite words in the Bible. It speaks not only of the ability to distinguish between things, but it also speaks to understanding what makes them different. It is to see beyond the surface, to understand what you are seeing and then to act wisely. To know the difference between good and bad, to discern is to know what makes good good and what makes bad bad and then decide to act rightly. In Psalm 139, when the psalmist asks God to search him, he is in fact asking God to discern his soul, to see what anxieties and wicked ways may be lurking in it and then to lead him in the everlasting way. So, asked differently, when is the last time you discerned your soul? And for the brave among us, when is the last time you asked God to discern your soul? If you are anything like the culture we live in, I would venture to say that it has been a while since you truly took stock of what you value. And I'll tell you why. Taking stock requires slowing down. It requires paying attention and being honest with ourselves. Jobog is not built for that. Our city is an amalgamation of noise, speed and endless activity. If we're not rushing somewhere like I was this morning, we are reaching for something. If we're not reaching for something, we are filling ourselves with something. And if we're not filling ourselves with something, we are rushing somewhere else. On our most efficient days, which are the days we all aim for, we manage to rush from one thing to the next, reaching for more and more and more and filling ourselves with everything. No wonder we are burned out, living with fractured attention, drowning in digital overwhelm and experiencing a sense of spiritual disconnection. Ronald Rollheiser, a Catholic priest, theologian and author says the following in describing the condition of the modern Christian. Today, a number of historical circumstances are blindly flowing together, accidentally conspiring to produce a climate within which it is difficult not just to think about God or to pray, but simply to have any interior depth whatsoever. We, for every kind of reason, good and bad, are distracting ourselves into spiritual oblivion. It is not that we have anything against God or depth or spirit. We like these. It's just that we are habitually too preoccupied to have any of these show up on our radar screens. We are more busy than bad, more distracted than non-spiritual. He goes on to describe pathological busyness, distraction and restlessness as major obstacles in our spiritual lives. In other words, our inner life is drowning in noise, drowning in hurry and drowning in ambition. It's impossible to take stock under these conditions. One would have to take time to give attention to their soul. Time and attention are the mediums of both reflection and devotion. If you want to know what you are devoted to, consider where are you spending your time. If you want to know what you're devoted to, consider how you are spending your attention. When we slow down and give our hearts attention, we begin to recognize what is happening within us. In the quiet, we may discover what we truly value and when we remove some of the noise, the distractions and the pressure to become more than what we are, our hearts may finally have the space to be honest with us. When is the last time you stopped? When was the last time you allowed yourself to be alone with yourself and alone with the Spirit without having to perform another thing, without having to be anyone to anybody else, without having to cover up the reality of what's actually happening in your soul when was the last time you did that. Even as I say this, what's coming up in you, what is the resistance in you? What is the thing that's keeping you from stepping in and allowing God, the one who loves you more than anything more than life itself to discern you, not just so that he can expose you, but so that he can lead you in the way of lasting. Instead of you making your own way, aren't you tired of always making your own way? Aren't you tired of the pressures that the city puts on you, that your boss puts on you, that your family puts on you, that your friends put on you, are you not exhausted by all of that? So instead of filling yourself with more, instead of forcing yourself to disengage so that you don't have to consider what's really happening in your interior life, why wouldn't you stop? Why wouldn't you ask him to come near? Can I let you know that he knows already? He knows already. He has discerned your soul already. When he put the breath of life in you and you became a living being, what that meant is forever until eternity. God is closer to you than your very own skin. He's already near, already inquiring, already searching. What would it look like for you to yield to that and participate in that? Trusting that he is good and he will lead you in an everlasting way. When we slow down and give our hearts our attention, we begin to recognize what is happening within us in the quiet we may just discover what we truly value and when we remove some of the noise, the distractions and the pressure to be more than who we are, our hearts may finally have the space to be honest with us and honest with God. For some of us, the kingdom is yet to be discovered. For others, we have discovered it and recognized its immense value, but even though we see its worth, we have not necessarily placed the kingdom alongside our own little kingdoms to weigh them against each other. We have not asked ourselves whether the things we are pursuing, the things we are protecting, the things we are building are truly worth more to us than the kingdom of God. And often, we wait for life to force us to ask these questions. It takes the death of a loved one, the loss of a friendship or a job, a depression, a burnout to finally turn our attention to our souls. And even then, we often do so because we are trying to understand why our suffering feels so overwhelming and not because we are trying to get nearer to God. What if we didn't have to wait for life to bring us to that point? What might we discover if we deliberately took the time to give our souls attention? Let me give you two simple exercises to try this week. The first is pay attention to what fills your mind. Notice what occupies your thoughts when you first wake up in the morning and when you settle down at the end of the day. Don't judge your thoughts, just recognize. What do your thoughts return to when you are not actively directing them? What occupies your attention before the demands of the day begin and what stays with you when the day is over? That's really powerful. What stays with you when the day is over? Is it that dirty look that your colleague gave you earlier? That's a clue to what you value? For the first 15 minutes of your morning resist the urge to fill the silence with preparations for the day. Put your phone away. Do not allow yourself to be distracted by what is on it. Minimize the digital noise as it were. Simply pay attention to what is happening within you. Do the same at the end of the day. Please take me up on this. It's a very, very simple yet very powerful exercise. Just notice what is what is running in your mind, in your heart, in your body and take note of it. The second is pay attention to the prayers you pray. Now don't change your prayers this week. I want you to pay the prayers that you've been praying at least for this last month. Pay attention to the kind of prayers you pray. Pay attention to the energy you bring to the kind of prayers that you pray. Pay attention to your intention, your aim when you pray. What do you consistently bring before God? What do you ask him for? What concerns and desires and fears repeatedly surface in your conversation with him? Don't judge your prayers. Just pray them. Our thoughts and our prayers can reveal what we value. We may not recognize the patterns immediately but if we pay attention over the course of a week, we may begin to see what actually occupies resides in our hearts. And this, my friends, is good because we cannot weigh what we value against the kingdom if we have never taken the time to recognize what we value in the first place. Perhaps as we slow down and pay attention, we will begin to see what we have been pursuing and what we've been protecting and what we've been building our lives around. And then we can bring those things before the kingdom and ask ourselves is what I'm living for worth more to me than what I have found in Jesus. That's a fair question. That's the kind of question that Jesus wants you to ask. Jesus is not interested with dealing with our false selves. Jesus is not interested in us performing and behaving correctly. He wants us to inquire and ask those questions and come with an answer. Can I say I would rather you come with an honest answer and say Jesus, I see this kingdom of yours, but I need X. Instead of pretending that Jesus, I love you more than anything and hiding this thing that you want behind your back, anticipating that he won't see it. Be honest. Be truthful. Bring who you are to him. Is the kingdom of God truly the treasure I am willing to reorganize my life around? Is the person of Jesus the treasure that I am willing to reorganize my whole search around? Lastly, for our third principle for today, the kingdom is decisively pursued. The invitation, again, is unequivocal. Sell everything that you might gain the one thing. Both men sell everything to buy what they have found. The merchant in particular faces an extraordinary decision. His life is built around trading valuable things. So, to acquire this one pearl, he chooses to give up the very resources that have enabled him to operate as this affluent merchant. There are things in your life that allow you to show up in the world as you do. Those things are the things that need to be sold. As New Testament scholar Craig Kena observes, the merchant's purchase represents a change in disposition. He moves from being a trader who deals in pearls to becoming the possessor of this one pearl of extraordinary value. The other pearls which he wants considered valuable become things he is willing to trade away. This pearl, however, is worth possessing, owning, securing, keeping. He is no longer simply accumulating valuable things. He has found the one thing that changes his relationship with everything else. His discovery changes his orientation to the world. Tim Keller puts it this way, "When you find spiritual treasure, you know you have it because every part of your life is revolutionized. Spiritual treasure never simply improves you. It completely remakes you." The same is true of the man who finds the treasure. He gives up what he owns to acquire the field in which the treasure is hidden. He does not simply add the treasure to his existing possessions. He rearranges his entire life around it. He sells everything so that he might acquire the field where the treasure is. The Kingdom calls us to sell everything to reconsider what we are willing to surrender. What does it mean to discover that something is of greater value than everything we currently possess? What happens when we find requires us to reconsider everything. We have accumulated everything we have pursued and everything we have previously regarded as valuable. And what happens when what we have found is the Kingdom of God. Now, quick disclaimer, you are not hearing me say in order for you to attain salvation. You need to do works. You need to sell everything. No, that's not how it works. Rather, the invite of the parable is inviting us to consider what might need to be surrendered in order for us to live as people who are of the Kingdom. In Matthew's Gospel, belonging to the Kingdom is a significant theme. What does it mean to be people of the Kingdom? What assumptions, ambitions, securities, allegiances, or measures of success might we need to reconsider to embrace the Kingdom's way of life? The movement in these parables is not simply from having less to having more. It is from measuring everything according to our existing understanding of value to discovering the one thing that redefines value itself. Jesus in this parable is trying to help us see what value is. He's trying to help us see how we need to separate our lives, lived on this earth, and the life that we could have with him in the kingdom, and be able to see that one is indeed more valuable than the other. It's difficult for us to consider that because we work so hard to accumulate all the things that we have. We work so hard and we keep working so hard to keep and protect all the things that we've accumulated. For some of you, it's your beauty, for some of you, it's your charisma, for some of you, it's your personality. All of these things aren't bad. They're not bad, but as soon as they become ultimate, they get in the way of you being able to acquire the kingdom of God. There's also this mutual belonging here, where the kingdom becomes ours, but we also become people who belong to the kingdom. We acquire the treasure, but our lives are also claimed and reordered by what we have found. There's an important detail in the first parable, where the man not only sells everything, but he sells everything in his joy. He goes off and joy to sell everything. His response is not presented as a reluctant resignation. He's not grieving the loss of his possessions or begrudgingly accepting the cost of acquiring the treasure. He is joyful. This raises an important question about our response to the kingdom of God. When we have found something that is of incomparable value, surrender must look different. It can't be, well, fine, Jesus, if you say, okay, God, I see what you mean, but oh, God, I'll only do this if you surrender must look different. It is no longer simply about what we are losing. It is about what we have found. The question is not merely, what will this cost me? It is also what have I discovered that makes this cost worthwhile? I think of a parent whose lost child and is willing to expend every available resource to find them. They will seek help. They will engage investigators. They will offer rewards and mobilize whatever resources they can. And if necessary, they will sell everything they own in order to find this child. And when the child is found, the parent's first question is unlikely to be, how will I recover everything I've spent? The joy of finding the child overwhelms the calculation of what has been lost. The loss is real, but it does not compare with the value of what has been found. Perhaps this is something of what Jesus is inviting us to understand about the kingdom. When we discover the thing of ultimate value, our relationship will sacrifice changes. We are not simply enduring a lost, we are decisively responding to a discovery. What we have found far outweighs what we have given up. So, as the band comes up, because I'd love for us to respond in worship, I want to conclude in this way. The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again. And in his joy, he went and sold all he had and brought that field, bought that field, pardon me. When he found one very precious pearl, he went away and sold all he had and bought it. Friends, parables are powerful literary devices. Yet they use analogy to teach spiritual truth. These parables on the mouth of the master of parables unveil the hidden things so that we might discover, that we might discern and that we might decide to decisively pursue the kingdom of heaven. But what if, on a deeper reading of the parable, what Jesus wants you to discover is him? What if he is the man who comes down from heaven to work the field of the earth, where he finds the treasure of humanity? What if he is the cosmic merchant who knowing the things of value searches and finds the most valuable thing? What if he is the one having found the treasure and the pearl who counts the cost and decisively determines that they are worth everything? There is no hesitation in him. He gives everything. He sacrifices his very life and secures the treasure and the pearl of great price. What if Jesus wants you to discover that you are the treasure and that you are the pearl? What if he wants you to discern his great love for you? What if he wants you to respond to his decisive pursuit of you? What and how would that cause you to respond? Would you give everything in response to him? As you reflect and you consider what he has given, go ahead and take the communion, acknowledging his sacrifice on the cross. He is blood spilled for you, he is body broken for you because of his decisive pursuit of you. And when you already respond, respond to what he has done for you.