with you all again. It's been a little bit since I've been here, but good to see your faces. It's good to be back. RUF this year has been very different than RUF the year before. It's been fun again, which has been really nice. We've been able to gather together as a large group. We've gone through the first half of the semester. We did a series on Galatians. The second half of the semester, I'm doing just a quick survey of some different passages from the prophets an area of scripture my students don't really interact with. Or if they do interact with it, they'll grab one verse and take it out of context and just use it for whatever they want. So trying to give some tools to help them do that. We've been able to do small groups and Bible studies and have fun events. And that's been really, really good. The beginning of the semester started off with big events every weekend and some kind of get-to-know-you events during the week. We pushed really, really hard for the first month of the semester to gather students, to connect students. And at the end of that first month, we went to Fall Conference. We took about 50 students to Camp Greystone for a long weekend to get to connect. to be around some other RUFs, to hear good teaching, to have fun together. And we got back from that, and I said, I am out of shape. I've not done this in a year, this high level of activity, this gathering and all that, and I'm tired. So what we decided to do was began fostering two twin boys. We have three girls of our own. Sophie is almost seven, Maggie's almost four, and Emmeline is one and a half. And now we have these two now three-month-old boys in our home. They're really sweet. They're really good sleepers. It took me like a Saturday afternoon basically to figure out how to jenga five car seats into the back of the van, but we all fit in one vehicle. So as you think of us, pray for us. We're tired. We're happy. We're encouraged. The boys are great. The girls have been really sweet with them. So it's been really fun. As we look to the end of the semester, students really only have about two weeks left of classes and then their exams. It feels like it's come really, really quick. So pray for them as they wrap up the semester, for many of them, the first kind of normal semester that they've ever had. Our sophomores, even, their last year was a mix of in-person and online. And this year has felt a little more normal. Pray for me and my staff as we rest up from a really busy semester, as we prepare for next semester, as we raise support, and as we reconnect with family, all that kind of stuff. So still love RUF. Still the best job ever. Still really happy to do it. We're a little tired, so if you could pray that for us, we would appreciate it. This morning, we're going to look at a couple really short parables in Matthew chapter 13. So if you have a Bible, I invite you to turn there. I'll read from the ESV. I did a series on the parables a couple of years ago in RUF. Every week I'd introduce them as, we tend to think of the parables as these cute little stories that Jesus tells that wrap up a truth nicely, put a bow on it, and hand it to us in a way that we can stomach. I think, though, that the parables are more like wrecking balls. Because we have all these assumptions about how God works, what he expects from us, how we work, how grace works, what life in God's kingdom will be like. And Jesus tells a story, right, that the wrecking ball kind of swings past our defenses and our assumptions, and then on the backswing it just knocks him down. Because the parables are unexpected, right? Who would expect that a father whose son has basically said to him, I wish you were dead, can I have my portion of the inheritance? Would, when his son comes home, run to him and greet him and embrace him. It knocks down our expectations about what God is like, what life in the kingdom is like, so that Jesus can rebuild them in a way that's actually true. These parables today talk about change. I think they talk about what it takes for us to change in our lives. I think they answer the question, how can I change? How can I be different? Can people really change? Some of us already know the answer to this question, we think, right? People don't really change. Maybe you've been hurt by someone over and over again, and every time they promise, this time, things will be different. This time, I'm really serious about changing, but after a few weeks or days or hours, you just end up hurt again. Or maybe you yourself, you've been struggling with some sin in your life or some need that you see and you've been fighting against it so long with so little to show for your efforts that you're convinced that this is just who I am. I can't change. These patterns are so ingrained in me, these struggles have been going on for so long. How do I change? Can I change? I think in our parables this morning, we'll see not only that change is possible, but what it takes for us to change. So follow along now as I read Matthew chapter 13, starting in verse 44. The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy, he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it. It's short, so I'll read it again for us. The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy, he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word, the truth that it reveals to us about who you are, who we are, and what you've done to bring us back to yourself. Fathers, we look at this passage this morning. I pray that you would help us to see all those things. Help us to see what Christ says about how our hearts work, how our lives are directed. Help us, too, to see his heart for us. Do this, we pray, for we ask it in Christ's name. Amen. So this parable, like all of them, I think, confront something about the way that we think. And the first thing that these parables do is confront the way that we think about ourselves. If you've ever taken any philosophy class, whether you remember it or not, you heard about a man named Descartes. Descartes was trying, he was kind of plagued with doubt, plagued with questions of uncertainty, and so he was trying to figure out for himself a way of living, a way of thinking that he could be absolutely certain of. How can I know that what I'm doing matters, that what I think is real, that what I'm experiencing is authentic? How do I know I'm not just some robot programmed to think that I'm a person? How do I know that the world really exists and I'm not just hallucinating and that right now Andrew Shank isn't standing in an empty parking lot talking to nothing? How do I know any of that for sure? And he found that each of these things he couldn't really know for sure. But in his estimation, down at the bottom of everything, he found one unassailable truth. I think, therefore I am. I'm thinking, therefore I must exist. Regardless of what I am or what it means that I'm thinking, I must exist. Because I'm thinking. I may be hallucinating, I may be a brain in a jar, but at least I exist. And so on that assumption, he kind of rebuilt this whole way of thinking, this whole way of living, and that is the assumption that our world is based on. That man, primarily, is a thinking thing. That what we think, what we believe, governs what we do. We see this all around us. You see this if you remember or if you've ever seen a public service announcement commercial. There's this incredibly dangerous thing that all of my students do, texting and driving. They're in their car operating one and a half upward tons of metal and plastic and momentum, and they're not looking at the road that they're driving on. And so, you know, the government or special interest groups or whoever says, how do we fix this problem? Well, education, right? Awareness. We'll make a bunch of commercials that show what can happen when you drive distractedly, when you text and drive. And if you've ever seen any of these commercials, sometimes there's just like the aftermath of a wreck where a car is upside down and the wheels are spinning and it says at the end, don't text and drive. My students see these when they're streaming something on Hulu, and then they get in their car to go home and text and drive. They know the information, but it doesn't change what they do. Or how do we solve the problems of the world? We see this all the time on the college campus. Well, we're going to raise awareness. We're going to make sure that people know about the issue, because if we know differently, we'll do differently. And so sometimes I'll run into people on campus that are handing out flyers or looking to talk to people and say, what are you here for? And it's like, we're raising awareness about environmental issues or about abuse of power or these opportunities on campus. And I say, thank you. You can mark me down as aware. And it doesn't change anything about my life. Me knowing doesn't necessarily lead to doing anything different. You see it in children's cartoons. If you ever grew up and saw G.I. Joe, you know at the end of those episodes there was always this little infomercial from G.I. Joe, and it said, and now you know, because knowing is half the battle. This is the assumption that our world is based on, that man is a thinking thing. We believe that what we know, what we think, determines who we are and what we do. But our parables this morning, Jesus is telling us that that's not actually true. Jesus teaches that it's not what we think, but what we love that governs our lives. What we love actually governs what we think. You see, Jesus says you are primarily a lover. All of your actions, all of your energy, all of your time is spent in pursuit of not what is reasonable and logical, but in what you treasure. what you revere, what you see as beautiful, what your affection is set on. I think that's what we see in these stories. They're striking in their brevity, aren't they? The story of the prodigal son kind of reels you in with these different characters and situations. You've got a plot. You've got some surprises. These just come in and almost like throw a bucket of cold water on you to wake you up. They're so short. Because we don't know anything about the man in the field. We don't know how old he is or what his occupation is or what he's doing in the field. We don't know anything about the treasure or the pearl other than it's worth a lot. We don't know anything about where the man is or their financial status or their relationships. All we see in the stories is a man finds something valuable and then does whatever it takes to obtain it. These men, whether they're looking for it or not, find something they find incredibly valuable, and immediately, without consulting parents, or friends, or spouses, liquidate all their assets, not a good idea, and do whatever it takes to buy it. It's an obsession. There's nothing that will stand in their way of obtaining that thing. And this is a picture of our hearts. When we treasure something, our entire self is bent towards it. Any time we spend on it will be time well spent. Any money we spend on it will not be considered expensive. Anything else we have to give up will have been deemed a worthy sacrifice. So what is that for you? What is that thing that you love? That the time you spend on it doesn't seem exorbitant. The money you spend on it doesn't feel like a sacrifice. For me in college, it was NC State football. I went to NC State and by the time I was done there, NC State football was a passion of mine. I loved it. It's a tough thing to love because it's It's broken, right? I grew up in Charlotte as a Carolina Panthers fan, and then I went to NC State as an NC State football fan, and so I know how to persist through adversity. But in college, Saturdays were for NC State football. We would get up early as college students on a Saturday to go and tailgate, to get ready and do meal prep and load up the truck. It wasn't difficult to get out of bed early. We were excited to get up early on a Saturday in college. It wasn't expensive when we bought one of those 10 by 10 pop-up canopies to give us some shade and a place to sit and eat. It wasn't oppressive to be in the summer swamp heat of Raleigh tailgating. And it wasn't ridiculous for me to take off my shirt and paint my entire torso red with a white number on it and run to the front of the student section so that we could end up on TV and proclaim our love for NC State football emblazoned on our chest. That wasn't ridiculous. And I look back now and I was like, why did I do that? It didn't matter what else was going on in my life. It didn't matter what homework was due on Monday, what job applications needed to be done. My grandparents could have been in town. Like, Saturdays were for NC State football. This is how you tell what you love. What are those non-negotiable things in your life? What are those things that no matter what else is going on, this will get my attention? It doesn't matter how sick I am, I'm doing this thing. Doesn't matter who I'm with, when this person calls, I pick up the phone. Doesn't matter how much work I have to do or what else is going on, but when this thing arises, it gets my attention. What are those non-negotiables? What do you treasure? Because Jesus is telling us that what we treasure, what we see as valuable and beautiful, we will give anything and everything for. But there's something else that happens. What we love actually starts to change us. That thing that we look at and we find beautiful actually starts to impact us. One commentator put it this way, what we revere, we resemble, either to our ruin or our restoration. What we revere, we resemble, either to our ruin or restoration. This is why parents are so concerned with who their kids' friends are, right? What are they like? What are their parents like? Because the more time you spend around someone, the more you start to sound like them, and act like them, and think like them, and you impact and influence one another. This is why people that have been married forever can finish each other's sentences without skipping a beat, because they start to resemble one another. They did all these studies about people who got addicted to the cell phone game Candy Crush. Do you remember this game with like jelly beans and peppermints and you swiped them and if you get three in a row like there's confetti and happy noises and you know bright colors. They found that people that spent a lot of time on this game and a lot of money on this game that when they closed their eyes superimposed on the back of their eyelids was this grid, and they were planning moves in Candy Crush, right? A cell phone game started to change even their resting moments with their eyes closed. What we revere, we resemble, either to our ruin or restoration. Jesus says, this is the way our hearts work. This is the way that we operate. This is what governs our lives, is that what we treasure, we pursue. The problem is we often treasure the wrong things. We love the right things, but too much, or in the wrong order. This is idolatry. And what we idolize, we imitate. Tim Keller says, an idol is usually a good thing that we make ultimate. We say, unless I have that, I am nothing. So what does it look like to have your life governed by a good thing that you've made, an ultimate thing? What are some of those things that come to mind when I say, what is it that you treasure? What is it that gets your attention no matter what? For some of us, it's family. Family comes first. And that's a good thing. We're instructed in the Bible. We read it earlier. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Because it's good for husbands and wives to be faithful to one another. It's better for families. It's better for society. It's better for children. All of those things. We're instructed to care for our own, right? And then out of that care, be generous to those around us. The Bible calls us to care for and love our families. But what happens when that good thing becomes an ultimate thing? What happens when that good and beautiful thing becomes the thing for us that we treasure above all else? What happens to your relationships if your kid's future is your treasure? What happens to friendships? To time with other peers? It gets put to the side, right? Because if my children's future is more important than my health, than my ability to love other people, than even my ability to model healthy friendships for my children, then it ends up hurting both of us. What happens to my time when my children's future or my family's well-being becomes an ultimate thing? What happens when my kid shows promise in soccer, but the travel schedule overwhelmingly happens on Sundays? Well, if the kid's future is more important than worship, what am I modeling for them? What happens to faith and obedience when good things become ultimate things? I think this is a helpful exercise to do, to look at your life, to kind of give an audit of your loves and say, what is it that I love, right? What is that thing that I'm willing to miss anything else for? And what does that do to me? What does that do to my time, to my relationships, to my money, faith, other people? What happens if respect of other people is that thing that I treasure? What does that do to my relationships? Well, I'm probably not myself in relationships. I'm going to be the person that I think you want me to be. Right? What if career is that ultimate thing for me? What does that do to my time? Well, it all goes there. Right? When work calls after hours, it's hours again. You see, what we idolize, we imitate. What we revere, we resemble, either to our ruin or restoration. What we love, what we treasure, governs what we do. It governs how we think and what we think about, how we spend our time and money. It governs how we define a good week, how we define success, the picture of the good life that we hope and work for. And this truth, that it's what we love that governs our lives, is why rules actually aren't that helpful. I'm coming up on a time of year where I'm going to have a lot of conversations with my students about New Year's resolutions. They see something in their life that they want to be different, and their solution is to make a rule. I'm going to do this thing. I'm going to not do these things. I'm going to diet, or exercise, or read my Bible every day, or whatever it is. Good things that they want to do. But rules. Rules, if we follow them, wear us out, right? Or if we break them, they make us feel guilty. And rules, for many of us, are just an invitation to disobedience. Paul says in Romans 7, I didn't know what it was to covet until the law said, do not covet. But as soon as the law said, do not covet, sin produced in me covetousness. Right? The best rules, right? The perfect law of God, because of our sinful hearts, produce in us rebellion. On our campus, there's a bell tower. Usually it works. Sometimes it doesn't. Chimes the wrong hour. It doesn't chime at all. Or, you know, it's a bell tower. But there's this legend on campus, right? There's this lore that if you walk under the bell tower before you graduate, you won't graduate on time. It's this unspoken rule, this unspoken superstition. And so I'll be sitting out on campus facing towards the bell tower, and it's like a giant boulder in the middle of the stream. All the water just parts around it. And it's one of my favorite things to do when I'm on campus is to just walk under the bell tower and see how other people react. Guys, all my students have walked under the bell tower. Because when you see a sign that says wet paint, what do you want to do? Is it still wet? When you see a sign that says, keep off the grass, you just kind of want to walk in the grass a little bit, because it's so green and inviting. Don't covet produced in me all kinds of covetousness. But rules are comfortable. They let us measure how well we're doing, but they never actually change us. Change in our actions, change in our thoughts, change in our lives. Real change is possible, but it only happens when there's a change in what we love. So how do we change? We need a new love. We need a new affection. But maybe now you recognize the problem, because how do I change that? How do I change what I find to be beautiful? How do I change what I treasure? This is the premise of every romantic comedy, is that the heart wants what the heart wants. If you've ever seen You've Got Mail, there's no way that Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks should end up together. He drove her out of business. But the heart wants what the heart wants, right? Or my kid's favorite movie right now is Tangled, Rapunzel. There's no way that a princess should end up with a thief, right? But Flynn Rider, he's the one who freed her, and she loves him. Your heart is designed and wired to love something. There will be something in your life that you treasure above all else, and that's never going to change. But it can be replaced. That thing that we treasure, we can't flip a switch and say, I don't value you anymore. But what can happen is that it can be dethroned. It can be taken down a few notches because a new affection, a new love, a new treasure has come in. And the way I see this the most in my work is the freshman breakup story. A girl comes in to campus, and she's dating this guy from her high school. And they both decided that they wanted to come to the same school together. And a few months in, usually happens around October, maybe early November. But it can't be too close to Thanksgiving, and definitely can't do it too close. It's October. And they break up. She's crushed, right? And she asked me to get coffee or she meets with Kate or our UF staff and they sit and just, you know, they talk about like how hard it is and how much they're hurting and, you know, just... everything reminds her of him, and she just sees him everywhere, and is constantly on alert, and she's so heartbroken, and she just wants to know how he's doing, and do you think we'll get back together, and all of these things. And then sometime in the spring semester, Somebody else comes along, right? All of a sudden, like she hasn't talked about Tyler in a minute because Derek is now in her life, right? Or he's no longer pining for Allie because Christy is here, and she has caught his affection, right? You see, that thing that we thought we loved above all else has been dethroned, right? Has been pushed aside by a new love. This is what it takes for us to change. We must fall in love with something else. We must fall in love with someone else. The only way that you will know any kind of lasting change in your life for the better is to fall more in love with Jesus. And how do you do that? The same way you grow in love for anyone. You spend time with them. You speak to him in prayer. You hear from him in his word. You admire the beauty of Christ in his world. You admire the beauty of Christ in one another. One of the great blessings of Christian community is that we get to hear from one another how beautiful, how wonderful, how great Christ is. The way he's loved us all so faithfully despite our failures and so perfectly despite our mistakes. And as we get to know him, as we spend time with his friends, as we talk to him, as we listen to him, our love for him will start to crowd out all these other loves in our lives. We'll start to reorder them. And what we'll find is that it doesn't take a New Year's resolution for us to read our Bible more faithfully. It doesn't take a rule for us to attend church or to rest on Sunday. The things that we give up for God, then, aren't a sacrifice. They're reasonable. He becomes the new non-negotiable in our life. And we start to change. Because who we revere, we resemble. One last thing that I want to leave you with that I think helps a lot for this. I've kind of been doing like a bait and switch on this parable because I think all of that is there. I think all of that is what Jesus is saying, that he's saying this is how your heart works, that what you love governs what you do. But when I read the rest of the parables, I notice something. Almost every time when Jesus says, the kingdom of heaven is like blank, what he's talking about is not you and me, what he's talking about is himself and his father. So what if this parable isn't primarily about how your heart operates, but about how his heart operates? What if Christ is the one who went out and he found something he treasured and gave up everything to make it his own? What if he looked at you? What if he looked at his church and said, that is so valuable that whatever it takes, I will make it mine. What if he who is rich beyond all splendor, all for love's sake became poor? That we, through his poverty, might become rich. Seeing that he loves you like that, Doesn't that kind of move him up a couple notches in your affection for him? If he loves you in your imperfection, that kind of perfect love demands a response. You see, this is the love that Christ has for us. And that helps us to love him more. This is why John tells us that we love because he first loved us. Look at Jesus in all his beauty. Treasure him. value him, revere him, and you will start to resemble him, because he will start to change you. Let's pray. Father, we thank you again for your word and the truth that it reveals to us about who you are, who we are, and what you've done to bring us back to yourself. Father, thank you for the truth in the scripture about how our hearts work, showing us that it's not primarily what we think, but what we love that drives our lives. And Father, our need in that, because we love the wrong things. Father, more than that, thank you that this is your heart towards us, that you treasure us above all things, and so do whatever it takes to obtain us. Father, seeing that you love us like that, seeing that Christ loves us like that, seeing that the Spirit loves us and dwells in us like that, I pray that you would help us to respond with greater love for you that that would change us and help us to worship and serve you and desire time with you and in your word and with your people, that as we revere you, we would start to resemble you. Do this, we pray, for we ask it in Christ's name. Amen.