More valuable than Gold

There's a companion Family Time Sunday School video that you may be interested in.

Songs:

Playlist

Introduction

What do you value?
- Your wife?
- Is Zena of value to me? Oh no
- Slap on the side of the head
- If something is of value, even of great value, then it has practical usefulness and therefore has worth to it. There is a price, but it is quantifiable
What is precious to you?
- Ah, now this is a related word but its connotations is that the value of the item is now beyond value
- It is priceless
“I can never have anything nice” - sic Zena
- What does she mean by this?
  - The things that are of value and of worth, keep on getting broken
  - Kids are precious
During this lockdown period
- Reaccess what is of value
- Family time
There is great joy in discovering that was right underneath your nose
- Walking the dogs | living their best lives
Stuart and the jacket
- Parable of the treasure
Of course, the parable that Stuart was referring to is the parable of the hidden treasure

Matthew 13:44 “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.

What I would like you to do this morning is to consider, to ponder… what is precious to you! Not just of value…. But what is precious...

Set the scene

One of busiest days in Jesus’ earthly ministry
- Jesus is teaching, preaching and performing miracles and this particular passage finds him alongside the shores of the Sea of Galilee, probably at the home of Peter
- On this particular day, Jesus leaves the house and the sheer volume of the crowd is overwhelming, the scripture refers to it as a multitude of people
- To deal with the crowds Jesus hops into and preaches from a boat
Matthew 13 contains a total of 8 parables
- There are similarities between each of them, but there are also differences
- Yet together they provide us with a picture of the Kingdom of Heaven
To the multitude he tells four parables(the sower, the weeds, the mustard seed, & the yeast), he then retires back to the house where the disciples ask him to explain the parable of the sower, which he does, and then he shares with them four further parables (the hidden treasure, the pearl, the dragnet, the storehouse)

The parable of the hidden treasure

As with the other parables, Jesus builds a simple story on an everyday occurrence
Finding a treasure was not an everyday occurrence, rather a purchasing a field
Now it is important to note here that the act of burying one's wealth in the ground was not an everyday occurrence
For the average person of the time there were no banks (not that they are very safe today), there was no home safes to purchase
The ancient world was not a very safe place
The chance of being robbed or attacked by an invading force to be carried off into exile would have been pretty high
And so if you wanted to keep your wealth you stuck it in the ground
You dug a deep hole in the ground, not easily discovered and popped your goods inside
Now this parable doesn’t tell us who this man is or what he was looking for or looking to do
He could have been a local landowner or farmer looking to expand his farm
Or he could have been a hired hand tilling the field, whatever the case he was not out purposefully looking for treasure… but he certainly stumbled across some
And this is the first lesson that I would like to highlight in this scripture

1. The treasure is hidden

The treasure is not superficially hidden nor is it accidentally hidden
The treasure is purposefully hidden to safeguard its contents until the right time for it to be revealed
CONTRAST: the hiding is purposeful, while the discovery is accidental

The man finds the treasure by accident
Not actively looking
Not purposeful
Man is preoccupied with other things
he appears aimless
Unaware of the treasure below
Superficially aware of the value of the field but unaware of the precious treasure

And so it is with the Kingdom of Heaven..
As believers who have come to know the value of the gospel… and for those of us that have entered into a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ it is not because of our hard work or tireless efforts to find Christ, rather it is a free gift

Purpose of the parables

Earlier in the passage, the disciples ask Jesus why he is teaching in parables (v10)
The quick answer
- An earthly story with a spiritual meaning
  - A simple story for simple folk
    - NO! There were all sorts there
  - For the unbeliever
    - NO! 4 last parables delivered to the disciples
Because “the knowledge of the Kingdom of Heaven… has not been given to them”
- “Though seeing they do not see, though hearing they do not hear”
- In other words, and the emphasis here is on the word given, despite hearing the word of God, despite hearing my preaching, despite seeing the miracles I have performed, despite seeing me…. They do not comprehend, they do not understand
- Not because they haven’t understood or just missed the point, but rather that they are cannot! They are unable to!
- And so it is with all unbelievers, so it was with us before our eyes were miraculously open and we were able to see
- We were like the man in the parable, going about our business, unaware of the treasure that was buried in scripture
WHY?
- V14-15 “calloused hearts”
- Now you may be asking yourself… “yeah Alister, but these were unlearned people, they could not read… if only they could have read more scripture they would have been able to understand
- No! The inability to understand the meaning buried within scripture is a problem of the heart not a problem of the mind
- Jesus, when dealing with the Pharisees and religious leaders, levels the same criticism at them
  - Matthew 12:3 “Have you not read what David did?
  - How infuriating! Of course, they had read those texts
  - He does it again in Matthew 19 “Have you not read Genesis?”
  - And again in Matthew 21:15-16, the scribes are complaining that the children are shouting and Jesus says “Have you never read Psalm 8?”
  - And again when Jesus is teaching the parable of the tenets, he asks the Jewish leaders in Matthew 21:42, “Have you never read Psalm 118”
  - And then final in Matthew 22:29 “You know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God!”
- What is Jesus saying… These men are supposed to be “Experts” in scripture, they know it word for word...but it is if they have never read the scriptures
- Jesus then in points out the problem in Matthew 16 and Luke 16
- They are an evil and adulterous generation, “lovers of money”, “lovers of the recognition and praise of others”, “greedy and self-indulgent”
We are no different!
“We cannot know Jesus for who he really is, and we cannot know Scripture for what it really reveals, without the gracious, supernatural intervention of God”

Jesus spoke to the people in parables not to hide the secrets of the Kingdom of Heaven, but rather to reveal them
Jesus didn’t want to stop people from understanding, on the contrary, he wanted them understood
That leads us to our second learning from this parable this morning...

2. The treasure is unexpected & not deserved

Our knowledge, our blessed understanding of the secrets of the Kingdom of Heaven are a miraculous gift from God
Now we might be tempted to say that this was written for unbelievers, and that once we have accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, that our eyes have been opened… And you are right our eyes have been opened…
But this parable was told to the disciples, away from the crowd in private… In addition to this the disciples, once alone with Jesus, after having been told that their eyes had been opened… ask Jesus to explain the parable of the sower…
You see understanding Scripture for its true meaning, in order to uncover the exquisite treasure buried deep within… this requires God’s constant supernatural understanding…
All too often we sit down to read the bible and then we walk away and say… okay, but I didn’t really get anything out of it!
Whenever we sit down to read God’s word we need to ask him to reveal to us its meaning
Whenever we sit down and read God’s word we need to ask him for his divine inspiration and revelation to understand
I would like to do something unconventional this morning…. Stop and pray
- A minute or so…

3. Claiming the treasure comes at great cost

If something is of value, even great value… it has a price!
But if something is precious… then it is without price! Or beyond price.
- You are willing to pay any price to protect or claim that precious thing
- It is worth anything to you, even the most precious of things, your own very life
Family -> fathers died in a fire
- Outside the house, they were safe
- They sacrificed their own lives to save what was precious to them
- Tragically they lost their lives
Accepting Christ as your personal savior means giving up all you have to gain the treasure
- John MacArthur “The blessing of being a Child of God through revelation and faith in Christ is utterly priceless, more valuable than all the possessions the richest person could acquire. There is absolutely nothing to compare with its worth and beauty because it is an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade”

4. Finding it results in great Joy

Not some Joy, not a lot of Joy, but rather a source of GREAT Joy!

When I asked Olivia to read this passage and to give me her first impressions
The man is selfish, he hid the treasure again
A sweet way to look at it
The discovery of the treasure is personal and the transaction is individual
You cannot be saved by the virtues of your parents
You cannot fathom the depths of Scripture by just listening to the speaker on a Sunday morning and place the responsibility on them to wrestle with scripture and then share it with us
If we get a little excited up here sometimes forgive us but we cannot contain our Joy
In preparing this I have
World Cup 2019
- I won a TV | takealot
- Joy was short-lived
  - I had won a TV
  - SA had won the World Cup
- Almost everyone I knew, knew that I had won a TV… do you know why? Because I told them, I could not contain my joy!
And so it should be with the joy we gain from finding the treasures God has in store for us.