Well, thank you, and thank you for the invitation to come and bring God's Word to you. Again, my name is Brandon Buller. I grew up in Goshen, so just about 20 minutes from here. I went to Goshen High School, so if you're from Concord, don't let me know. I'm still bitter about some losses to you guys in sports. Yeah, we're going to hear from God's Word today from Matthew chapter 13. The text is printed in your programs here, so if you want to follow along, I'd encourage you to just keep that open so you can be paying attention to that. Yeah, if you would please stand. I'm going to read the Word to us. Two short verses. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls. When he found one priceless pearl, he went and sold everything he had and bought it. Father God, with the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts, be acceptable in your sight. Oh Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen. You can have a seat. Oh, hi Francis. That's my family. I guess I should have done introductions. Francis and Isabel and then Luella sitting back there too. And my wife Stephanie's here. My mom and dad are here today also. So, set before us, like I said, is a pretty short, punchy, and easy to conceptualize parable, right? Just two verses. A parable is a story which Jesus used to teach on a topic that would have made a lot of sense to his followers, but at the same time would have confused anybody who wasn't ready to listen to him. So, for most of us here who have already put our faith in Jesus as the truth, we probably understand at least a little bit about what this parable is trying to point at. The kingdom of heaven is as valuable as priceless treasure. Well, that's it. You got it. If you want to come up, we're going to sing another song. No, I'm kidding. That's not it. There's more than that. Parables are fascinating, aren't they? Because they pack so much meaning into just a few words. It's uncovered in layers like peeling an onion. So each time you look at the parable, you probably notice a different aspect of the parable. They're really rich in meaning. Jesus in this parable is telling us what the kingdom of heaven is like. One of the first recorded proclamations from Jesus is, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. So this kingdom of heaven that Jesus is talking about is clearly central, somehow, in the mission of Jesus coming to earth. And the structure of this parable, you'll see it's a comparison, right? It's a simile. The kingdom of heaven is like something, and we're gonna find out more. So a simile is meant to help us understand traits that if you just describe them, they wouldn't really stand out, they wouldn't really mean too much. If Jesus just said, the kingdom of heaven is valuable, you'd miss something, right? You wouldn't have the same level of interest or understanding as you do from hearing this very short story that Jesus tells us. And in this particular case, there's this comparison from the lesser to the greater. It's kind of the opposite of an exaggeration, right? I don't think that Jesus actually thinks that the kingdom of heaven is worth the same amount as a pearl, even as fine as this pearl is. In fact, because this is a simile, we get to use our imagination a little bit as we hear this story. We get to dream of the most valuable thing we can think of, and then we can realize that the kingdom is probably a little bit more valuable than even that. And that's going to be important. So the kingdom of heaven is like something. But what is the kingdom of heaven? We haven't really defined our terms yet. It's pretty simple in some sense, right? We've probably read this phrase a lot of times. It appears in just the book of Matthew 32 times. So if you've read once through the book of Matthew, you've read this term a whole bunch. But if you really stop to pause and think about what its meaning is, It's kind of like a tree in your front yard that's been there as long as you can remember, but you've never actually bothered to identify its species. We read this phrase a lot. But it doesn't mean it's a simple concept. There's this complication. For starters, just this tricky word, word of, right in the middle, right? Kingdom of heaven. What do we mean? The word of is used a whole bunch of different ways, even in modern English. So does it mean the kingdom which is found up in heaven? Like the place where we go when we die? Does it mean the kingdom which is coming from heaven? Is it kind of like putting a boundary around the kingdom of heaven the same way we talk about the kingdom of Morocco or something like that? Is it a boundary marker? There's different ways to understand of. So how do we account for this? Well, we can thankfully use the Bible to interpret the Bible. There's places that are more clear, and when we have less clarity, we can look to them to help us understand what is meant. And one place that provides a lot of help here is the Lord's Prayer, a really super common passage of Scripture. And it says this in Matthew 6, verse 10, Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. So the coming of the kingdom, that first line, means that God's will is done on the same way on earth as it is in heaven. So the Lord's Prayer teaches us that whatever we think the will of God is in heaven, Jesus prays for it to be done the same way here on earth. So heaven, you can think of it this way, heaven where the throne of God is, is kind of like the headwaters of a river, right? And it flows downstream all through the earth as well. So, put all together, the kingdom of heaven, a good definition, it means that the throne of God, our king, is in heaven, but the reign extends all throughout the earth as well. Reign, R-E-I-G-N. There's nothing outside of the authority of the kingdom of heaven. It includes everything. And since the throne is everlasting, because God is eternal, the kingdom is everlasting as well. Okay, so that's kind of what the kingdom of heaven is. And it's worth noting that it has a parallel as well in other places. The kingdom of heaven in other Gospels is sometimes put as the kingdom of God. They mean the exact same thing. So if you read the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven, you can know that it refers to the same thing. It basically means anywhere that God is king, right? That is the kingdom of God. That's a quick definition. But additionally, it's on earth as in heaven, right? And what do we know about heaven? We know that God's glory is on full and uninterrupted display in heaven, right? So, again, adding a little bit of color to this definition, the kingdom of heaven is where God is king, and wherever God is king, there His glory is revealed. Let me say that again. The kingdom of heaven is where God is king and wherever God is king, there his glory is revealed. So that's what I mean by the kingdom of heaven. That's what the scripture means by the kingdom of heaven. And now we can turn our attention to actually understanding what the kingdom of heaven is like, right? So we can actually use this comparison to understand more. So what I'd like to do for the rest of my time here is to unfold this parable and to grasp Jesus' teaching about the kingdom of heaven. And I'm gonna do it by answering three questions. You can find them here. Who is searching for pearls? Who is buying the pearl and who is selling the pearl? We're going to answer those three questions and that's going to give us some further clarity. So first point, who is searching for pearls? Well, in this parable, the merchant is searching for fine pearls. His goal, of course, is to make a living, right? He's a merchant. This is what he does. But he's likely to make a whole lot more than just a living as well, because the pearl trade of the ancient Near East, it goes back like 7,000 years. Pearls were like a luxury good, right? They showcased wealth and elegance. And unfortunately, later on, the pearl trade broke down because in the 1900s, oil became the chief moneymaker and export of the Persian Gulf. So before oil, though, it seems like pearls were a real business. You could make some real money by trading fine pearls. So think of them, in today's terms, kind of like an expensive jewelry salesperson. This merchant wouldn't be the type of guy who's going to be easily distracted by just pretty things, right? he would have seen a lot of pearls in his day. A high quality pearl probably would have been like, oh that's nice, but it wouldn't have really gotten him all up in a tizzy, right? This wouldn't have been a real rarity for him to see a fine pearl. In fact, his whole job is to evaluate pearls, right? And then purvey them in order to turn a profit. So, he's no stranger to the beauty of pearls. And even, if you think about it, even the beauty of a pearl is almost a means to an end, right? Because it's to turn a profit. But what happens to this man? At some point, in his search for fine pearls that he can use in his trade, he comes across a singular pearl, which compels him to do something extreme. The great value and the preciousness of this pearl caused him to forsake everything he owns in order to obtain it. So he was searching for pearls, but what he found was something far greater than what he could have dreamed. So now let's come back to this comparison. If the kingdom of heaven is like this story, who's the merchant, right? How are we to understand who he is compared to? Who is searching for fine pearls? Well, let me describe to you how the merchant is actually every one of us. All of us can insert ourselves into the place of the merchant. It's you, it's me, it's your neighbor, it's the person you've never met, it's every human. And here's why. Everybody is looking for something. Everybody desires something. We are a species defined by our quest. We're always on the forward march. We're always looking for something. Just ask Elon Musk who's trying to send humans to Mars. We're all looking for something as valuable as a pearl, or profits, or satisfaction, or fulfillment, or beauty, or comfort, or fame. Everyone I know, who I've ever met, speaks kind of like Bono of U2. Let's see if you guys can fill in the blank lyrics here. I believe in the kingdom come, says Bono. Then all the colors will bleed into one, bleed into one. But yes, I'm still running. But I still. All right, what I'm looking for. Right, we're all looking for something. Everybody longs for things to be put right. And if we believe in Kingdom Come, even if we believe in Kingdom Come, we're still anxious for it to be fulfilled at the return of Jesus. We know that we're not yet at the destination. Now, the nice thing about a parable is that it's not exclusive to just one single context. So, he's not just talking about merchants in the ancient Near East, is he? He's talking about way broader contexts than that. So, it's actually appropriate and okay for us to think of ourselves in the place of the merchant. If you were the merchant, what would have motivated you? Maybe for you it might have been profits, but we can substitute almost any motivator that we want to. The merchant wanted fine pearls, likely for profit. So, you know, there's a chance that you too might be motivated by riches. Some are motivated by the desire to belong, to fit in, to be accepted, or to be loved by someone for who you really are, deep down. Some are motivated by a sense of achievement or a sense that you matter to the world, that your existence is justified and you've earned your place here. Some are motivated by pleasures or comfort or fill-in-the-blank type of happiness. We are all on the search for something. So in the parable, we can compare ourselves to the merchant. I just want to make clear one thing really quickly. That isn't a problem. Our friend the merchant isn't crazy because he was looking for a profit and you aren't crazy for having a deep motivator or longing as well. Bono, Well, actually, I take it back. Bono might be crazy. I'm not sure about him. But there's no indication in this parable that the merchant is in any way sinful for his search for fine pearls. So, the point of the parable isn't that this person is searching for pearls and he needs to repent of his search in order to have the kingdom of God, right? That's not the message here. Since all humans have something that we're looking for, just like Bono, and we're all created in the image of God to have desires, right? Then it doesn't actually matter. You could be a good person who's doing all the right things, and you can still be struck by the kingdom of God. You can be the chiefest of sinners. You can be totally self-aware of all the things you've done wrong, but you can still be struck by the kingdom of heaven. It doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman. It doesn't matter if you're rich or poor. It's possible for any and every person to be surprised by the glory of the kingdom of heaven, just like this merchant was surprised by the beauty of pearls. One who was hardened to the beauty in the first place. So, I'm actually convinced, right? Because that seems to have a particular weight in our evangelism, doesn't it? A merchant would be inoculated to the beauty of pearls, yet there was a beauty so pure that it shook him up and it stole his attention in a whole new way. And what that means is for all of us, in all our searches, for all the things we desire, the kingdom of heaven has a surprising way of overwhelming us and capturing and overtaking all of our previous longings. So, if a merchant who evaluates fine pearls as their life's work can still be surprised by a priceless pearl, then even a hardened sinner who has searched out their deepest longings in every imaginable possible sinful way can still be surprised by the greatness of the kingdom of heaven. even my brother or sister who has lost all hope for a life free from addiction or from the darkness of depression or loneliness, they can still be surprised by the greatness of the kingdom of heaven. And if you believe that, then that's a huge call to action because that means that you have the hope that fulfills and overtakes every human desire. And you can proclaim that to anyone. even for those who are totally lost in their own desires. Don't be afraid to share the news of the arrival of the kingdom of heaven. Whenever you share the good news of Christ's death and resurrection, you're sharing with a fellow image-bearer who's on kind of the same quest that you are when you really think about it. So a person without Christ is not your adversary. Quite the opposite. They're the image of God just like you are. They have great dignity and great purpose just like you do. So walk the path with them and learn that great longing of their lives. Because that is precisely where Christ can meet them to show himself worthy of praise. God will surprise them with the greatness of the kingdom of heaven and he'll probably surprise you with the way he surprises them with the greatness of the kingdom of heaven. So the merchant's goal is profit, but why buy the pearl if his goal was profit? If his goal was profit, that all went away when he saw this invaluable object, right? There's probably a sense of surprise even for him, just thinking, he's seen everything, but nothing like that before. Nothing but the object itself, nothing but the pearl is actually gained by him when he sells everything. That thing in his possession, he holds it and it fulfills him in some incalculable way. He doesn't understand it. It has its own glory. He finds that he needs nothing else other than the satisfaction of just peering at it. And that pearl is like the kingdom of heaven, which has its own glory. And you need nothing other than the satisfaction that God's glory gives you. I'm going to use an analogy here. Do some people here use a music streaming platform like Spotify or Pandora? I use YouTube Music. You use YouTube? Yeah. So YouTube Music comes with my internet subscription, so I'm like, I'll use the one that's free. A lot of people use Spotify, I know. And the thing that's nice about these things is it always gives you new material, right? It gives you something new that you probably haven't heard before. And that's kind of exciting, right? The Discover playlist or whatever it's called on your platform. You might know this feeling. It's happened to me a few times. You're listening to new music that let's say Spotify selected for you and something really just hits you. You hear this new song and you're like, whoa, who is that? I gotta find out more. It's not just like it's got a good rhythm or like, you know, is pleasing in some physical way, but it's got this transcendent quality to it. Like somebody wrote that song just for you. Have you ever had that feeling? It captivates you and you put aside whatever else you were doing. Sometimes I do this while I'm studying. And so I put aside my studies for a minute and I just listen to the song. And then I listen to it again. And I listen to it again. And each time the richness and the beauty are just overtaking. I have a playlist that I actually called, you might laugh, I called it Songs About Death. Because it reminds me that we're all going to die. But there are a few songs in there that talk about what happens after death. Two of them that I'm thinking of right now talk about what it's like to meet Jesus face-to-face, like after we die. And the beauty of those two songs is transfixing. I have a hard time listening to it without just crying. Do you guys have songs like that? It's just hard to hold back tears. And I don't think that's a different type of experience from the one the merchant had when he first viewed this pearl. There's this characteristic of beauty that has stolen his attention C.S. Lewis describes this type of beauty in a radio address that he calls the weight of glory, and he uses this kind of language. He says, we want something else which can hardly be put into words when we see this beauty. To be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it. You don't find the beauty of the kingdom of heaven. The beauty of the kingdom of heaven finds you. So again, I think that this is what the merchant must have felt when he viewed this wonderful, precious, beautiful pearl. It beckoned him into itself. And the merchant couldn't bear to be without this pearl. Now, when we talk about this using language to describe, you know, this transcendent beauty, when we describe, not pearls, but when we use these terms to describe the kingdom of heaven, that's actually what we call irresistible grace. You might have heard this term before. It's a theological word that we use to talk about predestination. Now, that's a Scary word for some. It's the letter I and the acronym TULIP. That might be a frame of reference for some people here. Some might have heard that before. A lot of times predestination gets a pretty bad rap, right? Because it sounds mechanical. It sounds unfeeling. It sounds like I don't have a choice in the matter. It seems like predestination is just another word for fate and then we don't get to participate in that at all. It's just like you're going to be going to heaven whether you like it or not. But that's not true at all, right? And I think this parable illustrates that. Predestination is not mechanical. In fact, the kingdom of heaven shows us that irresistible grace is actually glorious. Nobody is going to be saved against their will. There's beauty in the kingdom of heaven, according to Jesus, so much that you will choose to set aside all your wealth in order to have it. The kingdom of heaven isn't mechanical, it's full of glory and it beckons you to it. But we've got to think about another side to this as well. Because the merchant doesn't just pretend to sell all his things in order to have the pearl, right? He actually sells everything he has in order to buy this pearl. And it kind of makes you wonder, doesn't it? Is there a price tag on the kingdom of heaven? Christians, is it right and fitting that you sell everything you have in order to afford it? It's a little bit of an anxious question because for those of you who have read to the end of Matthew, Jesus actually does tell a rich man later on to do that, to sell all his possessions and give his money to the poor so that way he can come into heaven, right? Remember that story? And the rich man, what does he do? He goes away saddened. It makes you wonder, do I need to do what the merchant did? Do I need to do what Jesus called that rich man to do in order to gain heaven? Well, that leads to the final question. Who is selling the pearl? It's interesting, isn't it? There must have been somebody who had this pearl in their possession who was willing to sell it to the merchant. And he kind of got a good deal, didn't he? I mean, he sold this pearl, he had one pearl, and he sold it for the entire wealth of this fine pearl merchant. Good grief, talk about the art of the deal. Man, there's no higher asking price he could have possibly asked. Perhaps the merchant actually got taken advantage of. He got taken for a ride by this fine pearl seller. Is God going to do the same thing to you? Is he going to try to take advantage of you so that you have to pay out every last penny? Is he going to bleed you dry so that you can have his kingdom? Thankfully, friends, you don't purchase the kingdom of heaven. In fact, the bargain is actually on the opposite side. The bargain is for the buyer, not for the seller. You can't earn it. You can't pay money for it. In fact, if Isaiah is correct, Spoiler alert, he is. In Isaiah 55, he says, come everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. And he who has no money, come buy and eat. Come buy wine and milk without money and without price. And even if the kingdom of heaven was something that you could purchase, which it's not, It would probably cost too much for any of us to afford anyways, wouldn't it? So you're going to have to receive it as a gift. Just like Ephesians 2 says, salvation into the kingdom of God is a gift of God so that no one may boast. It's a gift and it's free. Going back to that rich young man that I was just talking about, when Jesus tells that man in Matthew 19 to sell all his possessions, it actually illustrates this point. It clearly wasn't a marvelous joy to him to sell everything he had to gain the kingdom of heaven, was it? What Jesus was doing was pointing out his idolatry of his possessions. It's clear that that man was not surprised and overwhelmed by the beauty of the kingdom of heaven. So what we can say is the Spirit of God had not worked on him to receive it as a gift. He thought that the kingdom was about earning his way through the law. He wanted to be good, but he didn't want Jesus as his treasure. Now, the kingdom of heaven is a free gift to you, but it does have a cost. It's not monetary, but it does have a cost. And here's the thing. Do you remember in the beginning I mentioned that this parable is a comparison from the lesser to the greater? It's like an opposite exaggeration or an opposite hyperbole. Well, it applies here as well. The lesser in the comparison is that the merchant needs to sell all his possessions, but the greater truth is that you need to die. You need to die in the flesh and live to God. You need to be buried with Christ in baptism in order to inherit eternal life and be raised with him in the kingdom of heaven. Romans 6 says it this way, We were buried, therefore, with him by baptism into death. In order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. We get our new life after we die, just like Jesus gained his new life after his sacrificial death. So the cost The cost of our new life in the kingdom of heaven is a death to sin. But if you pay that cost, here's the gospel reality, the really good news. If you pay that cost, the riches you inherit in the kingdom of heaven are far greater than any cost you could possibly pay, greater than the desires of your heart that you thought that you wanted, greater than all the money that you will ever have in this life, greater than your life itself. The glory of the kingdom of heaven will overshadow any other desire. But that's not it. There's more good news. There's one greater thought that we need to keep in mind as well. Yes, you need to die in your flesh in order to live in the kingdom of heaven. And yes, that is costly, but remember that Jesus had to pay an even greater cost in order to purchase your life for him. You see, the kingdom of heaven is free to us, but it wasn't free for Jesus. but he thought you were worth buying. Do you know that? Jesus paid much more than his life savings to obtain you as his precious pearl. He paid his own life, not through dying to his flesh, but as God in human form, he had his flesh torn apart as the payment of the cost of your sins. God himself had to be put to death. in order to pay the cost of your sins. There was no cost that was too high for Jesus to pay, though. He was willing to go to the cross to bring you the kingdom of heaven as a gift. The kingdom of heaven, yes, it's the precious pearl to you and me, but you and I are the precious pearl to King Jesus. By the way, I just want to reference in the bulletin, we have the verse to know. And it is that very reality that you and I are the precious pearl to Jesus that secures 1 Corinthians 15 58. It says, You know it's not in vain because he was willing to pay every cost to make sure that it wouldn't be in vain. I'm going to close with a C.S. Lewis quote from the same essay that I referenced before, The Weight of Glory. These are his words. The promise of glory is the promise, almost incredible and only possible by the work of Christ, that some of us, that any of us who really chooses, shall actually survive that examination of final judgment, shall find approval, shall please God. To please God, to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness, to be loved by God, not merely pitied, he says, but delighted in. As an artist delights in his work, or a father in a son, it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is. You, Christian, are the precious pearl of the Lord. And the kingdom of heaven, so precious as it is, is worth every cost in order to receive the glory of the King. Let me close with the Lord's Prayer. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.