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Jan 16, 2022

The Parables of Jesus | What’s the Gospel Worth?

The Parables of Jesus | What’s the Gospel Worth?

Passage: Matthew 13:44-46

Speaker: Matt Petty

Series: The Parables of Jesus

Category: Sunday Sermons

Keywords: worship, faith, jesus, sunday, god, sermon, bible, gospel, hope, salvation, believe, bible study, live music, parables of jesus, how to be saved, livestream, burnt hickory baptist church, burnt hickory worship, pearl and treasure, heaven, mercy, christian, matthew, forgiveness, kingdom of heaven, eternity, hell, jesus christ, the bible, born again, eternal, parables, moral stories

When we truly value something, we ascribe a cost which is related to what we will give up for it. We see in Matthew 13 a parable taught by Jesus about discovering the true worth of salvation and how that will revalue every area of our life. We see in scripture in this parable about a pearl and a treasure in a field, that the gospel is hidden in simplicity and in ordinary believers, and that gospel attracts us with a promise of greater and eternal joy. But in this simplicity, we see that the gospel requires us to leave everything else. We must have no rivals and no refusals, and we will end with no regrets. God is not upset with you because you want to be happy. He's upset for you because he knows that your happiness and joy will only come through him. He knows that's the only thing that will last. When we say that God is a jealous God, he's not jealous because he's insecure. He just knows that he's the only one that can make our lives truly happy. He knows he's the only one that can bring us true joy. The rest of the things in our lives are just fleeting. What things are you valuing more than the gospel? In what ways are you complicating the gospel? Are you willing to have no rivals and no refusals? What you might be feeling is conviction, fear, or even anxiousness. We would love to pray with you and walk along side you in your faith journey. You can reach out today to find out more about who Jesus is, how to be forgiven of sin, and how to live out your faith – burnthickory.com./next

Well, good morning, Burnt Hickory, thanks for being here today and also, man, let me just say thanks for joining us from hundreds and hundreds of living rooms around the place. You never know how Georgia weather is going to work out but thank goodness we can still worship together today. We can still be together today, even when we have this kind of weather. Listen, if you were not able to make it out with us last Wednesday, let me just say this. You missed an incredible time. We had incredible food. We had incredible fellowship. The Bible teaching all over this building from our smallest kids to all of the adult offerings is there. And here's the good news about it. There's still time for you to jump in this week.

Well, last week we started a new series here at Burnt Hickory called The Parables, the parables of Jesus where what we're doing over these next couple of weeks is that we're walking through a couple of the many parables of Jesus's teaching to the people in and around Nazareth, around Jerusalem, all around in that area. And we said last week just kind of as a foundation that parables are these times that Jesus took earthly language and teaching and moments, and he would put an incredibly big truth into earthly terms so that he could communicate it to the people that were around him. We know that that's kind of where we grew up thinking that parables are our earthly stories with these heavenly meanings. But we also said last week that parables also carry with it a little bit of obscurity to where Jesus would teach things in a way that if someone's heart was ready, if it was receptive, if it was softened, that they would be able to walk out and hear and receive a truth that he was giving it. Last week we looked at a Matthew Chapter 13 at this parable of the soils, and we asked ourselves this question of what does my heart look like? Am I hard hearted? Am I shallow hearted? Is my heart divided? Or is my heart opened in a position to where I'm asking God to give me his truth? Well, look, we're going to continue in the parables this morning and actually we're also going to continue into Matthew Chapter 13.

So, if you've got your Bibles, go ahead and find them. If you need to hit the pause button for a minute. To get there, do what you need to do. But Matthew, Chapter 13 is where we're going to be. As you're finding Matthew 13, when I was studying this text this week, I was reminded of a story that really spoke this text in an incredibly real way. To me, it actually kind of seared it into my heart and drove it home in August of 2005. If you were around, then if you were watching the news or if you were even halfway an adult, you'll remember that Hurricane Katrina. Hurricane Katrina swept across the Gulf Coast and hit New Orleans and hit the whole region around the gulf down there. And In our church here at Burnt Hickory, we sent out many, many, many teams down to help out in that area. Well, one of the early, early trips I think it was in in November that we sent. I was a part of and got to lead and we were in the Gulfport, Mississippi, area.

And I'm telling you, you can't even describe just the carnage. It looked like an atomic bomb went off in the place and our job was basically we did a lot of tree cutting. We did a lot of what they would just called gutting out of homes and trying to remove everything out of the house, down to the bare wood to see if it could be saved. And we were working in an area to where it just didn't seem like anything could even be saved. But one of the particular houses we worked at one day we were all we were all kind of using wheelbarrows and bringing everything out of the house, and the lady that owned the house actually showed up that afternoon. This was kind of odd. There wasn't a lot of people around, but she showed up to just kind of examine what the place looked like and what it what it was kind of going to be like. And I remember just kind of taking a break that afternoon with her being there. It was a little bit weird, a little bit awkward and just looking at her and hearing her story and just she was pouring out of her heart and pouring out of the there, just there, her soul that she had lived in this house for 50 years and all of the memories and all of her kids and grandkids. And it just seemed like at that very moment she was looking at it like it is all gone now. And then she looked around, and she basically proceeded to tell us that the only thing that she had left on this Earth, possession wise, was what she could fit. Into her Honda, into her small little car and left to go stay with safety in a safety of family before. Look, I'm kind of a I'm kind of a question, ask her. So, I remember sitting there with her that afternoon and just sharing some time together and I said, Well, ma'am, can I ask you a question? She was like, Sure, you can. You can ask me whatever you want. I said, Well, how did you know what to take? Out of everything that you own this whole house. How did you know what to take with you? How did you know what to take? How did you know what to leave and what did you take? She said, Oh, what did I take? I was like, yeah, what did you take?

She said, Well, I took some family photos, and I took our family, our old family bible. She said I took I took enough clothes to get me by for a couple of weeks, and I took some heirlooms that had been passed down from family generations. And she said, and quite frankly, all else that I took was just the kind of official documentation that said who I am. I said, Well, what determined what you took? And I'll never forget what she said to me that day, she said.

She said, Honey, she said, I took the things. Now listen to this. She said, I took the things that I knew I could not replace. She said I took the things. That I knew I could not live without. You know, I learned a principle that day and it just kind of sat into my soul from that point forward. And that principle goes with the parable we're going to look at this morning. In fact, I want you to write it down or I want you to place it into the app. And here's the principle the principle is this the value we place on something, is shown by what we will give up for it. Let me say it again, the value that we place on something is shown by what we will give up for it. Now you see in the gospel of Matthew and in Chapter 13, Jesus talks a lot about the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Heaven.

He talks about the gospel. You can interchange those, and he talks about it by using that principle right there. And what Jesus taught in that principle is that the finding the Kingdom of God, finding the gospel, finding putting Jesus into our lives is like finding something of such great value. That if we find it, we are willing to leave everything else behind because we know what we're getting is worth it. So, with that being said, let's look at the parable that Jesus gives to explain this principle actually, it's two parables, it's two of the shortest ones in the whole Bible and actually they're this actually might even be the shortest passage that I've ever preached at one time. But don't worry, you're going to get a full message out of these two out of these two verses. Matthew Chapter 13. So, look at these couple verses.

So is this in verse 44 says 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 that he had, and he bought that field. Verse 45 Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls when he found one of great value, that just means it was priceless. It was very precious. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had. And bought it. So, I want you to see something here, there are two strikingly, I guess you could call them strikingly similar stories that Jesus gives us. The first story on this side, we see that the Jesus talks about a man that is in a field that and he kind of stumbles randomly upon some treasure.

Now we don't know exactly what it is that this man is doing in the field, right? We don't know if he's just if he's been hired, maybe to plow the field. We don't know if he's just walking through the field and stumbles over something after it rained and washed. We don't know, man. Possibly he could have even been digging a grave and burying somebody there for all that we know, we don't know what he's doing. But what we do know is that he uncovers an incredibly great treasure, which, by the way, when I read this, this brings to mind, and this is one of the dreams I've always had in my whole life. I would love. I would love to discover some kind of treasure. I love panning for gold. I love going to look for gemstones. I love watching the show gold rush. In fact, when I was a kid, I even loved going into the backyard, digging, thinking that I was going to find some kind of fossil or some kind of treasure in my backyard. I even loved the movie National Treasure, where they find underneath the Trinity Chapel of New York, right? They find this incredible treasure or they're it, or they're at Mount Rushmore, and they move the rock back with the eagle on it and they find a treasure or they're in in Philadelphia or Boston at the Old North Church. We all have this lure in our minds about finding a treasure. This is one of the old guys, right, walk up and down the beach with their metal detectors just all day long, trying to find that treasure on the wheat on the beach, which, by the way, I thought those guys were incredibly incredible nerds until I read an article about a British guy about five years ago who found over $5 million of treasure, seventh century gold, in his neighbor's backyard. Right? Who's the nerd now?

You see, here's the thing in Jesus's time, finding treasure was not that odd of a deal. In fact, if you think about it, it's really logical because there were no banks. There's nowhere you could put your money. So, a lot of people would find a place on their property or find a place that's out of the way, and they would bury their money so nobody could steal it from them, so nobody could take it from them. Or let's just say this over your town was being invaded. A lot of times in Jesus's day, what they would do is they would go out and bury their treasure so that if they lost and if they were taken captive, they wouldn't have to surrender over all of their moneys.

And a lot of times people would die after they bury their treasure, and no one knew where it was. It would just be lost forever until someone found it. In fact, if you read a lot about the discovering of the Dead Sea Scrolls, you'll see that part of what they discovered on one of the caves of the Dead Sea Scrolls was a map that identified over 60 families that got together that put the location of where they stashed their moneys while they were being invaded by these other four other forces. So. So the real point of this is that that when Jesus started telling the story about a treasure in a field, people began to lean in. They began to realize, Man, I know exactly what you're talking about of what this is going to be. They began to think, Man, I may even have money buried somewhere, so they would have listened to this.

They would have thought that this was incredibly relevant. Now when you're reading this first parable about the guy who finds the treasure you see really quickly, there is a little bit of an ethical dilemma in this right. It seems quite obvious that the guy should be morally obligated to tell the person that owns the field what he finds. But he doesn't, right. In fact, the guy actually acts a little bit shady. He goes in, he re-buries the treasure. He goes over to the guy's house, and he asks, Hey, how much for that useless piece of dirt that useless field you've got? And they for some way, we don't know there's any kind of questions or any interactions. Remember, it's just a story. But what we do know is they agreed on a price. They agreed on the terms. The guy went away. He sold everything he has, all that he has ever accumulated, and he buys the field. But I want you to notice in the middle of this, I want you to notice there are three of what I just think are the most important words in this verse.

In fact, in this text, and it's these three words. I want you to. I want you to write them down somewhere. The words are this. In his joy. In his joy. Because I want you to think about why those are just incredibly pivotal words. You see normally when you have to give up everything that you own, you're devastated. You're at a loss for words, you're like the lady in Gulfport that was that was literally crying over the fact that she had lost everything. But this guy that gave up everything that he had did it, what was the three words? In his joy. Do you know why? It's because this guy is gaining. He's gaining something of much more value. He's gaining something, though, when he walks away with what he now possesses. It makes everything that was in his past seem so minuscule, seems so worthless, seems so trivial or seems so just trite. And Jesus looks at you and he looks at me in this parable, and Jesus says this. That's what finding the Kingdom of God looks like. That's what it looks like. That's the first parable. The second parable is, is the same point.

But there's a little bit of distinction in the second parable. You see the second parable. The guy is not just a blue-collar worker that's walking through a field, right? He he's not, he. The second guy actually stumbles upon not what he's not looking for, but he finds what he is looking for. He's not a blue-collar worker. He's a merchant He's a merchant, he's a wealthy man. He's not walking through a field. In fact, he's probably spent his whole life searching after the thing in which he is now finding which side point just for a minute.

I want you to notice the first-person stumbles upon the gospel. The gospel just invades his life. It’s just bang. It is there. The second guy after months and years and years of trying to find it. They find it. I just want you to notice that tension of how the gospel hits our lives. You see, this guy has been a merchant of pearls, a merchant of treasures. He's been a treasure hunter. Which, by the way, did you know that pearls in the ancient in the ancient times that we're looking at right here in the ancient world, pearls were the most or one of the most valuable jewels in the ancient world? Why? Because they're hard to find they were hard to come by. There was no scuba gear or great ships where you could take air down. No, they were incredibly rare. In fact, it's said that Cleopatra's wealth was combined into two just massive pearls that in today's money would be worth about $4 billion. The merchant in the second story makes his living off buying and selling pearls, and in this story, Jesus says he finds the one. He finds, the one that has such beauty. It has such just majestic worth to it. What does he do? He sells all of his other pearls. He sells his home. He sells his business. He sells his land. He sells everything. He has just to buy this one pearl. So, there's two men, right? One's blue collar, one's white collar. One probably has a little, one probably has a lot. One was not looking for treasure, but one was looking for treasure. one was of the common class.

One was of the elite class, or Jesus at this point. He has everybody looking at him, the rich people, the poor people, the merchants, as well as just the common farmers. Both guys in this story, listen to me, encounters something that has such value, it makes everything in their life worthless in comparison to what they find. You see, Jesus says, this is what it's like to discover the Kingdom of God. This is what it's like to embrace the gospel. This, Jesus says, is what it's like to submit our hearts and lives to Jesus.

In fact, let me give you a second principle that can wrap all of this together. Principle two is this You see, discovering the true worth of the salvation of Jesus will always result in revaluing in every area of our lives. When we discover exactly what it is that Jesus gives us what it does and what Jesus offers us, what it does is it makes us reevaluate. It makes us revalue all the other things in our lives. You say, here's the deal. It's not Jesus and salvation on this side. And then everything else on this side of us, Jesus says, No, it's my salvation is here. It is shadowing every other area in our life. And I am worth all of it. In fact, I'm worth more of it, and I am worth you losing it all joyfully, joyfully. That's the overarching principle and truth of the story Now, but here's the deal. These two parables do even more than that. These two parables teach us some things about the gospel.

They teach us some things about who Jesus is in the gospel. They give us some important reminders about the gospel, and I want to give to you this morning and the first one and these are these are a little bit a little bit big-boy and big-girl theology. The first one is this the gospel is hidden. The gospel is hidden. Now we don't talk about this a whole lot. But stay with me for a minute because here's what I want you to see. Prior to sin hitting the Earth God in all of his glory, God and all of his communication, God and all of his majestic-ness right was evident to Adam and Eve and to everyone. But because of sin, there has been a wall that has been divided between us and God. And now there is a little bit of obscurity of what the gospel looks like.

We saw this last week in the parable that we study last week that the message of God is only illuminated by the Holy Spirit in our lives that would have us to begin to turn towards God, and that our role was to submit to that turning. This means that we're not born with a full knowledge of God. We're not born with a full understanding of God. We're not born having salvation, and we don't just automatically receive it from our parents. The Holy Spirit shows us. He speaks it. We soften, we submit, and we give him our life. God's glory in a lot of ways is hidden because of sin that is in our life. So Matt, how do we know God's glory Is hidden?

And how do we see? What are some examples of it? Let me give you a couple examples of how the Bible says the gospel is hidden. Number one, we see it in this the heavenly glory of Jesus. The heavenly glory of Jesus was hidden in his earthly body, was hidden, his earthly body. So, what does that mean? They think of me on this one. When you think of the God of the universe coming to Earth, right? When you think of the God of the universe coming to this Earth, what do you think of you think of like a guy maybe walking down the road and all always has this halo around him or the shining light around him? Or maybe he's riding on a majestic unicorn. Or maybe he's walking through the crowds and all everybody's partying. Or maybe it's like a painting of a Greek god that you studied, or maybe it's just you looking at it, and it's like a physical specimen of a man, right? Kind of like me. He's walking through the crowds, and he's just the incredible physical specimen. But that's not what the Bible says. Jesus came looking like, right? Isaiah, 53. Watch what it says in verse two, it says he had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him. Nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering and familiar with pain, like one from whom people hid their faces. He was despised and we held him in low esteem.

What does that mean? That means that Jesus, right, the maker of the Earth, Jesus, the one that split the land in the ocean. Jesus, the one that created the atom, the one that has given our human brain just the intellect to be able to perceive what is going on. Jesus was born into the messiness of mere humanity in a human body like mine, a human body like yours into the poorest of poor situations. Think about it. Jesus never led an army, never wrote a book, never was elected, never lived in a palace, never sat on an earthly throne, never was given any kind of award. And for those reasons, I just want you to go with me on this. For those reasons, because Jesus hid his glory, there are many people who have missed him. Many people who have missed him. But that was intentional. It was intentional. Why? Because God doesn't want us to seek Jesus to gain power. God wants us to seek Jesus to fall in love with Jesus and to live out our love for Jesus. You see, here's the deal.

If Jesus would have come in full power and full physical beauty, he would have attracted people to him that just came to him desiring beauty and power. So, Jesus, when he came in the flesh, hit his power so that I would, and so that you would, so that those people who are pure in heart would seek him and love him. Let me clear this up. Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade, hopefully you've seen that movie if you have not, today is a great day to do that at home, by the way. Indiana Jones The last scene or towards the last scene. You've got Indiana Jones. You've got the other archeologists. They're in this little cave. They have found the cup right they are there, and it’s now Indiana's dad has been shot. He's about to die, and now they've got to choose which one of the cups, right? Which one of the grails is the one that Jesus had? Well, the first guy went first he picks the most ornate cup. Kind of like this one right here. He picks the most ornate cup that was there, and the guy holds it up, and he says this is the cup of a king. And he, remember, he takes the drink and all of a sudden, the ages like 100 years. And then he crumbles into dust. And remember the old Knights' Templar, he says "he chose poorly" or something like that, right? And then it was Indiana Jones's time. He looks at all of the cups and he grabs the cup. He grabs the cup on the bottom. The cup that's old. The cup that was just kind of common. The cup that anybody could have had. And remember what Indiana Jones says. He says this is the cup of a carpenter. And then he gives it to his dad and his dad drinks it, and he comes back, and it's saved, well, normally I wouldn't say Indiana Jones is an incredible theologian, but that's what I'm talking about in the fact that Jesus' beauty, Jesus' glory, it was hidden in an earthly man to show us what it looks like to love him and to walk it out on this earth. It was hidden in that, but also number two, write this one down. The eternal power of the gospel is also hidden in its simplicity.

The eternal power of the gospel is hidden in just the simplicity of the gospel. See the gospel message in itself. It's so simple The gospel message, the words of the gospel message. It is so simple, and it comes to us from simple language. It comes to us from the preached word of God. That we can, either we can, we can embrace it, or we can set it aside or we can ignore it. But make no mistake the simplicity of those words. They have power to give you life. They have power to change you. This is the parable of the mustard seed in Matthew Chapter 13. You can read it. This small little seed gives this huge tree after it grows. What does that mean? It means the seed, the small, the simplicity of the word that is put into our life can produce towering fruits. Think about it. one word from God. In its simplicity can change eternity. It can change you and it can change me. It can change all of us. one word from his book one word spoken over your life. It can change you for eternity. one simple word, which if I could sidebar for just a minute. And say this, this is why I or this is why this church takes the preaching of God's word so seriously, this is why we do it. Well, this is why we don't have speakers at this church. We have preachers at this church. This is why we don't give talks at this church. We proclaim God's word in this church. You see, talks can entertain talks, can kind of enlighten, but it's God's word that saves us.

Paul, the Apostle Paul compared the preaching of God's word to the moments in his life, where he told the lame to rise and to get up and be healed. And I fully believe that when the word of God is proclaimed and when I stand up here and I preach the word of God in the promises of God, that if you will just believe them and if you will just submit to them that they can give you the very presence of the eternal father and the power of the eternal father in your life. This is why this church takes the preaching of God's word so seriously, and it's why I take the better part of my week getting ready for these couple, fortyish minutes every single week that we speak the word of God over each other. It's not about my opinion, it's not about anybody else's opinion. It is about the simplicity of the gospel of Jesus Christ stepping into your life and making a transformation happen.

The simple gospel of Jesus can be understood by a six-year-old and save them. But the power of the Gospel of Jesus can break down the hard heart of any 58, 59, 60-year-old on this planet. Peter says that even the angels look at it and long for it. So don't say you're bored with the gospel. The simplicity of the gospel is what changes our lives. But the message can be hidden in the simplicity. Keep moving, number three. The beauty. The beauty of the gospel is hidden in just ordinary believers.

The beauty of the gospel is hidden in ordinary believers, think about it the instruments of the gospel proclamation, that's you. That's me. We're just ordinary believers think about the disciples, we did a whole series on it not too long ago. They're just ordinary people. Honestly, I find myself just begging God, God, why don't you save some powerful people? Why don't you save some smart people, some more famous people, some more impressive people, some more athletes or movie stars or just music stars or intellects? But it just seems like that's not how God works a lot of the times in his plan, right? Think about the Apostle Paul in first Corinthians Chapter one, verse 26, when he says this, brothers and sisters. Think of what you were when you were called.

Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many of you were influential. Not many of you were of noble birth, but God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong God chose the lowly things of this world and despised things. And the things that are not to nullify the things that are. Why? So that no one may boast before him. In other words, God is not looking for our great abilities. He's looking for our availability and most often time, God uses the ordinary. He uses the ordinary. So don't judge God by the sharpness of the people that follow him on this Earth. Don't judge God by the style and the put togetherness of his church. Don't judge God by the lack of luster, or the many problems in believers lives and don't judge God by how not smart your pastor is. God is not interested in you being attracted to him through the beauty of his servants. He's interested in you falling in love with him because of the gospel of Jesus Christ. So, what do we see in this parable?

The gospel is hidden. The gospel is hidden to those hearts that are hardened; they're selfishly pursuing. The gospel is hidden in the ordinariness and the simplicity. The gospel is hidden in just regular people. But to balance that, I want you to show that I want to show number two truth. Number two not only is the gospel hidden. But watch this, that's the bad news. The good news is the gospel attracts us. The gospel attracts us with the promise of greater joy. An eternal joy. The gospel attracts us. It illuminates us as it draws us with the promise of a greater joy of eternal joy. Remember the two most important words that we talked about earlier? Remember I gave them to you. I mean, the three most important words. Remember the three words were in his joy. Remember, we said, normally you'd be devastated when you lose everything. Yet this man was not devastated. Neither one of these men. They were both filled with joy. Why? Because the value of what they were obtaining, outweighs any of the sorrows from what they had to leave behind. That's the gospel. But let me ask you a question, does that describe your relationship with Jesus? Does your relationship with Jesus, could it have the joyfulness of God as an overarching banner of your relationship with Jesus?

Does joy describe your encounter with Jesus? I mean, really, do you see that you're surrounding yourself with Jesus? Like you surrounding yourself with an eternal, joyful treasure that everything else just pales to compare? Do you find yourself finding yourself just totally satisfied in who Jesus is and looking at everything else, and saying man? it's there? And it might be OK, but it means nothing compared to that. You see, if most of us were honest. Our image of encountering Jesus does not look like us pursuing joy. Many of us would say my relationship with Jesus really and truly is just like me and this never ending to do list or me in this massive "I feel guilty about what I don't do." Or me with this big ball and chain strapped around me and I don't get to do what I want to do or me submitting to Jesus. And now I can no longer have fun and I can no longer do what I want to do. But man, I got to do it because I don't want to go to hell. I want Jesus in my life.

Can I be honest with you for a minute? If that's your view of the gospel. If that's your view of surrendering to Jesus, you are missing the treasure of Jesus in your life. This parable smashes a deeply ingrained myth in religious people that when you give your life to Jesus, there is no longer joy, there's no longer happiness, there's no longer fun. There's no longer any of that in your life. It shows you how little you understand about Jesus if that's your understanding. Remember this God is not upset with you because you want to be happy. He's not. He created happiness. He created joy. Many Christians. Let me just say it. Many Christians feel like God wants them to walk away from all joy, all happiness, not have any fun. They want him to walk away and just get religious, forsake all joy and just serve out of a sense of duty. God's goal is not for you to be miserable. It's for you to have joy of the Lord in your life. Here's how you should think about it.

God is not upset with you because you want to be happy. He's upset for you because he knows that your happiness and joy will only come through him. He knows that's the only thing that will last. When we say that God is a jealous God, he's not jealous because he's insecure. He just knows that he's the only one that can make our lives truly happy. He knows he's the only one that can bring us true joy. The rest of the things in our lives are just fleeting.

In fact, Nehemiah eight, verse ten, Nehemiah says this. He says, go enjoy the food and sweet drinks and send some to those who have nothing prepared this day is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve for the joy, he says of the Lord is your strength. The joy of the Lord is your strength, not the joy in ourselves, not the joy and just begrudgingly serving God. Look, the joy of the God, that we serve. The joy of the Lord is our strength to obey the joy of the Lord is the commitment in the mundane times that gets us through. The joy of the Lord is the only thing that gives us hope in trials. The joy of the Lord attracts us to his presence, no matter the earthly cost. It's the eternal joy of the Lord knowing that we are going to exchange this earthly body for a heavenly body for an eternity with the king.

That's what God is saying. God is saying, here I am. Here is eternity. Here is my presence. Here is it all. And the gospel woos us. Draws us to that joy. It's what the parables are teaching us. But here's the third thing the parables are teaching us. Number three, it’s that the gospel, it requires us to leave all. The gospel, number three, the gospel requires us to leave all else. Now notice something about the parables. Both men, both men in these parables, had to leave everything else behind to obtain the prize. That's the requirement. That's the condition. That's the idea behind what the gospel does. The gospel sets itself in front of it, and it's so hidden at first. But when it's illuminated, it's so beautiful. It causes us to leave all else behind.

You see, many of us, we want the treasure in the field. Many of us, we want that pearl on the table. But we just want it without having to let go of anything. And we think we can have Jesus, but just Jesus, not control us. We would rather just be able to say, God, I want you, but I just don't want you to have me. So, what do we do? We do the next best thing in life. And that is, we don't surrender our hearts to Jesus. We just kind of get good and religious. You see, religious, religion in our minds is a way that we can really and truly just pay God back a little bit for what he's done for us, right? What do we do in religion? In religion, we see what God requires of us, then we just do the bare minimum we give the bare minimum. We get involved, the bare minimum. And we hope that as we do that, it will be the minimum amount that will keep God away from being just angry at us.

Listen, that's not repentance. That's not us surrendering ourselves for the joy of the treasure that's in our lives. That's not following Jesus. Remember in these parables. There was no question to their allegiance. There was no pause in their submission. There was no doubt in their commitment. Coming to Jesus or surrendering our hearts to Jesus really and truly means that you might not be sure where Jesus is leading you or how you will have the strength to do it, or how the details are going to work out on the end, or how you're going to have enough to get there. But you do recognize that Jesus is the treasure worth giving up all the knowledge of those things. That's the parable.

Let me close with a story. It's from Randy Alcorn in his book Treasured Principle. You may have read it. He tells of a story of a small little out of the way grave in Cairo, Egypt, Cairo, Egypt. You wouldn't find it unless. Really, truly, unless you're looking for it, it's out of the way, it's not notable. It's a small tombstone and it's a tombstone that identifies the grave of a man by the name of William Borden. William Borden. William Borden was the heir of the Borden Milk Company, now the Borden Milk Company. That's still in existence today. But in the 1920, he's it was one of the largest companies in the United States, and William was to be the next owner, the next runner, CEO, president and guy that possessed this company as soon as he graduated college. Well, William graduated from Yale in 1909. And in 1909 William, right before he graduated, he surrendered his heart to Jesus. He became a believer. But then, as he became that believer, he realized that God was doing some incredible, incredible things in his life. And then he was overwhelmed just by the Gospel of Christ, by the love of Christ at one point.

And he wrote in the inside flap of his Bible, these two words no rivals. He wrote those two words. He just wrote the words No rivals. After graduation, William believed that God was calling him to become a missionary. That God was calling him to proclaim the gospel to the Muslim people. He went to his parents. He told them what he was going to do, that he was turning down the family business. He was turning down the family inheritance. That he knew this was what God wanted him to do. They said he's going to have to pick between one or the other. And he just submitted to who God was in his life. His parents looked at him as a man, you are crazy.

That afternoon, he went into his prayer time, and he wrote in the front cover of his Bible, right under the words no rivals. He I mean, right into the words, no rivals. He wrote the word no refusals. He wrote the word no refusals. So, he loaded up his two suitcases and he headed off to Egypt to become a missionary. After four months of just incredible ministry, William contracted spinal meningitis and died at the age of 25. He died. On a ship that was going towards some medical care, one of the care workers looked at him and knew who he was. Knew his family. Read part of his story and asked him the question Hey, what do you think now about the decision you made to come here and do this? And Williams simply said these two words, and I want you to write him down.

No. Regrets. No regrets. And today on his tombstone in Cairo. With a little description of his life and his time with the Muslim people. There's a sentence on his tombstone that literally says this and may this be the goal of our life. Apart from faith in Christ, there is no explanation for such a life. You see, church, this is the point of the parable. When you realize and understand the value of Christ in the mind and the image and the treasure and what it gives you.

It all makes sense. And everything else that we bring up to that point. Is it even close to being worth the treasure in the field or the pearl on the table? Let me submit to you today, church that he is worth it. That he's worth it. It is worth submitting all to follow Jesus. It's worth leaving all to follow Jesus. It's worth saying no rivals, no refusals. And I promise you, if those two things are spoken of your life, there will be a day you look back at your full, full past and say, I have no regrets.

Lord Jesus today. Step into this moment of decision, Jesus. And God, as a result of you illuminating our hearts. Show us today, Jesus, that you're worth it. Lord Jesus, if there are people that are listening to this message, that need to surrender their hearts to you, may they reach out immediately after I say amen. On our next steps text and just say these words, I need Jesus. There's people that need to commit to your word, to commit to this church, that need to commit to knowing you. Let today be the day they stumble upon the gospel. Or maybe today's the day they find what their heart has been yearning for. And that's you, Jesus. Thank you for church this morning. It's in your name. We pray.

Amen. Amen.

Follow Along with the Message

What’s the Gospel Worth?

January 16, 2022

PRINCIPLE: The value we place on something is shown by what you will for it.

Matthew 13:44–46
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.

“In his ”

PRINCIPLE: Discovering the of the salvation of Jesus will always result in the revaluing of every area of our lives.

3 Truths about the Gospel

1. The Gospel is .

3 Examples of how the Bible says the Gospel is hidden:

1. The heavenly glory of Jesus was hidden in his .

Isaiah 53:2–3
2 He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. 3 He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

2. The eternal power of the Gospel is hidden in its .

3. The beauty of the Gospel is hidden in .

1 Corinthians 1:26–29
26 Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things — and the things that are not — to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him.

2. The Gospel us with a promise of a greater and eternal joy.

Nehemiah 8:10
Nehemiah said, “Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

3. The Gospel requires us to all else.

No

No

No

Additional Notes

 

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