Well, now this morning, we're in Matthew chapter 13, and a very familiar parable, that parable of the pearl of great price, and you'll find it there in verses 45 and 46. What a short parable it is. Of course, there are longer ones, and a longer one follows right after it, the parable of the dragnet. But this one, lasting but two verses. Indeed, a similar one there with the treasure buried in the field. Well, that's all of one verse. But how rich the parables are, how suggestive they are, and give the imagination, don't they? Something to work upon in respect of the situation. That's what they're meant to do, isn't it? They're meant to draw us in, present us with something from the everyday that we might at least somewhere recognize. Maybe not too many of us are pearl merchants and spend our time looking for pearls. I don't know. but I guess probably not quite us, but we will get it. We get it, what it means to be that person. And we get it, what it means to be that person who then finds a pearl of great, great value and proceeds then to sell everything that he has in order to buy that pearl. Yes, it's exaggerated language. Yes, it's taking something to an extreme to make the point, but it works and we get the point. we find these illustrations there very helpful. And they're not there just giving us helpful hints. If you're a collector of things, you know, collectibles, well, this is what you do. Look for the best that there is and then pack up all the rest in order to get it. No, it's not such a thing, because it's talking about the Kingdom of Heaven. Again, as you see, there are other parables. The Lord is bringing to our attention important things here. Kingdom of heaven, nothing more important than that. What is it? What does it do? How do you enter it? What's it like to find it? And particularly, of course, that kingdom, heaven's kingdom, the rule of God in the world, but particularly in your heart and my heart. And really in this way, when we think of the kingdom, well, we might ask, well, who's the king? And we know who that is. It's the person who's speaking. It's the person who's talking about the kingdom of heaven. He's not talking about some abstract place, some sort of vague idea, some distant land. He's actually talking about what he himself is able to bring, what he himself presides over. Who is the king? Well, the king, the parable of the dragnet there, when the angels have gathered in all the various people, the fish, good fish, bad fish, the wicked or the just. Well, who is it who's in charge of this process? Well, the king is. The angel's doing his bidding. And the name of that king, well, it's the Lord Jesus. He is that king. He's the one about whom this kingdom speaks. And although there he doesn't sort of insert his name, his name is there. And when we think of treasure, And when we think of the pearl, well, he is that treasure, and he is that pearl. His is the name. Well, you want to find the kingdom, then you want to find the king. Do you want to know how valuable the kingdom is? Well, find out who the king of that kingdom is. That will tell you all that you need to know. There it is, isn't it? The mystery, the parables. There's somewhere in it that he's veiling it, himself, and yet revealing himself. The parables, he's hiding in plain sight. but only those who have ears to hear and eyes to see it will see it. Yeah, we get it, the pennies dropped. Didn't drop in Nazareth, did it? They just took offence at him there. He went and preached and taught mighty works that he had done that they'd heard about, but rather than concluding here is the son of God. They concluded, no, here is the son of Mary. We know her, we know her family, and then his brothers, we know his sisters. Well, look, he's no better than us. How dare he come and lecture us like this, and speak to us with no authority? Well, only God should speak with, only a king should speak with. they missed it, didn't they? There was a pearl of great value, and it had emerged from that family, from that rather lowly family, that he had emerged there, hadn't he? That tender shoot, no comeliness about him, that was the fact, and they disputed, and there were not many mighty works he could do among them, because of their unbelief. So this parable then, as we proceed with it, the title I've given it is this, recognizing something valuable when you see it. Recognizing something valuable when you see it. They didn't see it in Nazareth, they didn't get it. They didn't see that this person was the king. There is the one of infinite value in their midst and they dismissed him. Tragic. So my first heading. We are not at rest. We are not at rest. People are looking for rest, they're looking for peace, they're wanting their troubled minds and consciences to have some answers, some remedies, some soothing ointment or whatever applied to it, but they're not at rest. And such people, well really it's the world. It's what we are actually, before we find Christ, but there's that restlessness. And when we think there's another remedy, another hope, well, we go there. If somebody else is writing 10 steps to this, that, or the other, we buy their book. When somebody else stands up and says, well, they found the answer to unlocking human potential, enabling you and me to fulfill, become real people, authentic you, authentic me, then that book is probably destined to be a bestseller. because it tunes into the restlessness, the unhappiness that people feel that they know they haven't found quite what they are looking for. If they could even recognize what they're looking for when they see it. So, we have perhaps, I don't know, been a restless person, hunting, searching. Well, this merchant's that sort of man, isn't he? He's got a collection of pearls there, but these are the collection he went and sold in the end, because it was not what he was looking for there. He might have imagined it, here we go, isn't it? Imagination, end of the day, and he gets his collection out. And he has a look at them. He's like, I've got quite a few pearls I have. That one there, nearly, it's nearly perfect, but there's a slight fissure there, or a slight discoloration there. And that one would have done it, but the shape is just slightly out of shape. And I was nearly, but not quite. And he maybe looks over them there, whether you're a person into collectibles. And he's like, I remember where I got that one there. how i had to trade hard to get that one and oh i had to travel miles to find this one and i found it i was really pleased to find it still look at it and that's good to have it but it's not quite it it's not quite perfect and while each pearl may have a story and picture him there at the end of the day reminding himself, oh I said go miles that was a hard one there and somebody else was bidding for it and I really had to kind of bid a lot for that one. Hard work to do that cost me a lot. It was good but it's not quite it. There we have it and there we have humankind. People might finish the day, maybe they've worked hard They put their feet up whatever they do. They might feel a fair degree of satisfaction, a fair degree of contentment. And yet there's always a fly in the ointment. There's always something there just to take the edge off it. something to trouble you and you're looking at something and you think, well, that's good. Somebody's got a bigger one than those or a better one than those. And I look at that and I'm thinking about that other one and that peace, that contentment. Then maybe I hoped that I would get that final, final finishing touch that I hope to bring to my home. That last kind of mile, that last finishing thing. Yeah, it's already wearing out and it's already beginning to get discoloured. Oh dear, that leaky bathroom up there, some water's come through, I can see a patch in the ceiling. Look up at the ceiling here, we've got plenty of them here at the minute. But anyway, something like that. It's not perfect. It's not done it for me. And maybe we daydream and we daydream of the moment when, ah, that ah moment. You get deep theology, don't you hear? That ah, moment comes and you think well that's that's it that's what I was looking for people may just fantasize about that day dream about that moment but it never seems to come and if maybe we think a little more deeply about it we may find that actually it's making us very impatient we're lacking patience we're on edge somewhere inside we're on edge maybe we're giving over a little bit to depression that we're feeling very sad We may not be able to identify it, we may not be able to put our finger on why we're feeling it, but it may be that it's this, that that lack of contentment, that lack of feeling, that ah, that ah moment has come, and my restlessness can end, but it's still there, unspoken and vocalized, but it's animating us, not fulfilled, and we're depressed about that fact. Well, there we are, friends. that may be describing you or whoever's listening on the internet may be describing you. We're not at rest, not by nature at rest. Just like this merchant here, you kind of get the feeling he's not satisfied, he's not at rest. He's got a wonderful collection of pearls, but he's not satisfied with it because he hasn't found the one that he's really searching for, which will be for him, his ah moment, second heading. Some people can't recognize something of value when they see it. Some people just can't, can't recognize it when they see it. We've seen the people of Nazareth couldn't recognize the person of value in their midst. Well, let's take the everyday here, but I follow this. Maybe you do, you know, something like Antiques Roadshow and, uh, They turn up in town, don't they? They're coming to your community. So get in the attic, get up there in the loft, find that old relic, that old family heirloom or whatever, which was handed down. You think, ah, I wondered, I wonder if that's worth something. You know, kind of look at it and think, you know, it might just be worth something. It's worth a go. Let's go to Antiques Roadshow, stand in the queue, get the experts there to run an eye over it. They get on the telly. You know, it's got a lot in it, hasn't it, there that would draw people. And so there it is. And of course, we know on occasion, that's what happens, isn't it? And sometimes a person's I'll take it along, you know, some old thing here that was picked up in some far flung part of the world. And my great-grandfather brought it back here and we always looked at it and thought, it's a bit odd that thing. Anyway, let's give it a shot. And of course, and the expert there, sort of magnifying glass, what have they got on it? And they're looking at it, they look at the provenance underneath there. This is the moment they say, do you know what you've got here? I've no clue what I've got here. And then they go on to explain it. And of course, the person really hasn't got a clue about it at all. And all these names and all these places. And do you see this feature here? Well, they've never noticed that there before. Well, that shows. Well, it's worth a million pounds. Now, you watch their jaw drop at that point. Well, yeah, they had that thing. Mouldering in the attic, up in the loft there, or down in the basement there, out in the garden shed there. They were sitting on a fortune. They had something worth a million pounds and They couldn't really see it had any great worth, maybe a bit of sentimental value. You know, the most beautiful thing in the world. And so maybe it didn't merit a prided place in the house. And they were sitting on a fortune. They had something of great value and they simply didn't recognize it. And it's a beautiful moment for them when they do recognize it. But so often for us friends, we just don't recognize it when it's staring us in the face. I'm going to say in a moment. Here it is, friends. It's in the Bible. Here it is. It's this Jesus Christ staring you and me in the face out in the open air preaching for the people of Elba. He was staring them in the face yesterday. I have to say for them, like the people of Nazareth, they didn't seem to realize quite how important that name is and we're out preaching there and our friend did his first preach out on the streets and did fine with that too, we're very encouraged in that. There was the beautiful name, the precious name of the Lord Jesus and they just passed by, they just kept walking for the most part there. What a name, that name, what a privilege it is, even if nobody stops, I always feel it's a privilege to speak his name. to speak of the cross, to say how much God loves sinners, God so loved the world, to tell it again. We finish it, do they listen? I'm not sure they did. We don't always hear the truth. People may have taken a snatch of something, a bit of literature one day, maybe never one day, but maybe when we get to glory, we'll see that made the difference. That was their moment there. But if we take them at face value and read from them what we see there, And, uh, all kinds of ideas. And some of our friends there heard some of the weirdest ideas they've ever heard. They're coming from the lips of some of the people of Belper and what they're into and what they believe and what's really stirring their hearts. And you shake your head, sadly, that that's, that's what they're looking for, or that's what they think satisfies. It's pretty obvious they're not satisfied, but they still keep coming. wanting to talk about these things, they haven't got closure. But here's the one who could give you closure. Here's his name. This is the one you need to know about. Here he is, of such value here. The merchant saw the pearl, that's the one. Well, he's the gospel, because the gospel has within it there the pearl. Christ, he's revealed to you. And they just don't see it or think that that'll do it. Maybe they think the next drink will do it for me. The next drink will just make me so, so happy. I'll get into that state of, ah, couldn't care about the world, and some of it will just maybe live with me, continue with me. I was preaching in Sheffield yesterday and my friend who was taking me back to the station had to pull up pretty smartish as somebody there, obviously intoxicated out of the brain, decided to walk across this four lane traffic road when the lights for him were red. And we had to stop and he put a thumbs up to us there. I don't know where he was really or what he was hoping for for that evening, but he didn't seem to be holding out great prospects there. we've been up at a church, we've been speaking of Christ, the best that he could come up with was to absolutely get himself drunk. So people think the next holiday will do it. They'll have a peak experience. I'll get there and that'll be it. I'll just feel fulfilled at one with nature, or one with whatever it is I'm hoping to be at one with, or the next home improvement, or the next moving of house. And so it goes on. And there was Christ preached in their midst. There's our Bible texts outside preaching Christ. Christ's in the midst. And they walked by. And they choose instead anything. Anything but him. Look in this direction. Bring drunkenness is the thing. Bring great destruction on yourself. I'll tell you there, I shouldn't go out too often on a Saturday night. I think I'll make a pledge to myself and never go out again. The sights and the sounds in Sheffield. That's only about seven o'clock, eight o'clock in the evening. What comes later, I dread to think. But that's what people are looking for. So here's the Bible. Here is wisdom. It's from God. It is word. And it's without error. And it tells you what you need to know about yourself, about God, how you can know him. And people carp at this word. Oh, it's an old book. What can that tell us? And all the people in churches carp at the Bible and say, it's an old book. What can that do for us now? People out in the world there will say, oh, it's full of errors. I'll put to say what errors there are in it. Well, it's full of errors. Well, science has disproved it. You try and find out what science they know, and they know precious little science, but they just latch on to the idea. Somehow science has disproved it. The resurrection can't happen because science says it can't happen. I don't know what science it is that says it can't happen, but I suggest it's pretty poor science and superficial science if it rules out everything that it can't necessarily observe or measure. But that is still where people rested. There it is. There is truth. There's the Bible. There's the Word of God. You can take it. It's here. It's in English. You can read it. You can understand it. Who can't understand this parable? Two verses. It's not as if you're going to have to take all night over it. It's said and done in under a minute. Yeah, it tells you really, in a sense, all you need to know. And yes, people walk away from it. Third heading, the standout pearl. Well, we've been talking about him, haven't we there? Well, some people actually will look into religion. We'll think religion, broad sort of sense, does it, has it, contains something there, has a tingle factor, has a, you know, if we light a few more candles around and, you know, sort of take in the atmosphere there or have some statues and icons and touch a bit of this and smell a bit of that, that will just waft you away into something more ethereal. A lot of people think that that is what they're needing and looking for. Or some people think that actually Christianity has done a lot of good and we don't need to go too supernatural and certainly don't need to get so serious that we repent of our sin and believe in places like hell, but it's done us okay. And that we're quite well-mannered and polite people. There's still a fair bit of honesty out there in the wider world. That's good, we're satisfied. with that. Friends, that is to be satisfied with far, far too little. For here we are being promised far more than words, far more than a system, a religion. We're being offered a person and a relationship with that person. We're being offered a proximity. There's the merchant. He's got the pearl. He's holding the pearl. It's there. It's always there. It's with him. Well, We add to that and say, well, that's the Lord Jesus Christ. And he's always with us. It's not that we sort of buy him with money. It's not as if we have him as a possession, put him on the mantelpiece there. But no, we have that proximity and we're never going to lose him. He holds his people. never lost, never out of his sight, never out of his mind. This is the Christ that we need to behold. It's the discovery. If you're not made the discovery yet, that's the discovery that awaits you if you have eyes to see and ears to hear. This is the one, the precious one that you can behold for yourself, that you can, just as a merchant holds the pearl and is captivated and says, this is it. This is exactly what I was looking for. Maybe I couldn't even articulate it, but I know it now. I'm overjoyed. I'm going to sell everything. Nothing's worth anything now compared to this. At that moment, actually, is a moment to look forward to. You're not a Christian. That I could look forward to that moment for you and pray that you would have that moment, that discovery. the beauty, the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, to see that this is the most worthwhile person that's ever come into this world, that these are the actions of one who in himself is both God and man. And is that not precious in itself? Divinity, well that's glorious, but then a humanity that is perfect and pure, and that he willingly took to himself, though exalted. What's he gonna have to do with a body? What does God want a body for here? but he does and will, and his son will, and consents to it, and is prepared for this, and comes in a humanity that itself, so beautiful, so glorious, so perfect, obedience to God, obedience and help to neighbor, a love that just brimmed over in him, and that came to its fullest expression when he laid down that precious, precious life on the cross. there. Ironically, the pearl is seen at its best. You want to see the king doing his most kingly work, doing his most glorious work. Then don't look in the palace for him. Don't look in some fine stately home for him. Look at the cross for him. And that will tell you everything that you need to know about him and about yourself and myself. It'll tell you that the king came into the world, the king whose kingdom this is, that you might see him precious because he forgives sin, because there on the cross is all the evidence you and I will ever need. that a God of height and majesty, infinitely glorious, is willing and prepared, though justice would say, not a chance for you and me. Look at their sin, look at their record. But mercy triumphs over judgments in the very heart of God, and there his Son instead will answer for our crimes and misdemeanors, answer for all the bad and evil motions of our hearts and souls. He will bear the cost of those things, the wrath of God. that pearl is seen as his most lovely and his most gracious, his most condescending, his most helpful toward us by laying down all of that excellence, having it nailed to a cross and having to face the wrath of God that you and I should really be looking towards and knowing that that's where our sin will take us. Yet no, There instead, he is there, our substitute, using that word. It's an exciting word, but it's a good word. Our substitute in our place, bearing that shame and that scoffing. And we can look, and we can look. And if I can give you any advice, just keep looking. Because that's him. That is him. That is his work and his alone to do. That is the work he came to do. All that life of purity and excellence that you almost in a sense just want it to never end. But it had to end, and it had to end there. Bearing the wrath of God, the chastisement for our peace, was upon him by his stripes, the wounds, the deepest wounds were there in the soul, not visibly seen, that we are healed. Friend, that's your stand out, Pearl. That's your glorious person doing a glorious work for us. and doing it most gloriously where that beauty and splendor seemed the most concealed, under the nakedness and the shame, the isolation and agony, the abuse, all of the humiliation of the cross. Enduring all the spite of men to bear, indeed, the weight of God's anger. It wasn't as if there was respite for those pains in his death. No, rather, there was more. And it was the darkness that touched his soul of our sin, it's guilt. And that was his to take and receive fully. So my final heading is this, do not be satisfied with anything less. Don't go hunting elsewhere. Don't search out some other idea, philosophy, self-help idea, whatever else. Do not think that spending your money a bit more to get one of those or one of these or have that holiday, that experience. will do it, it never will. We're restless and we need actually to know we're forgiven by God for that restlessness to cease and for us to begin to learn peace, contentment of the soul. Your eternal welfare, your soul's welfare hinges on this, getting it right, seeing this one of value, recognising him when he is in your midst, before your eyes, portrayed to you through the Bible, through preaching, through the hymns that we sing. Anything less than this doesn't save. No other Christ, a Christ with no divinity, well he can't save you. A Christ with no humanity, well he can't save you either, you need the Christ of Scripture has to be the cross, not a cross that's like an example of what really we ought to be all like and sacrificing ourselves and just doing the right thing there, even when our enemies are against us. Well, there are some good lessons I'm sure in there, but that's not the lesson that Scripture wants us to take away, wants us to see that the Christ had to suffer, he had to die. If we're to be released from our sin, then he had to suffer, he had to die. And that's the Christ that you and I need. Don't satisfy yourself or settle for any lesser Christ. He won't be able to save you. Immerse yourself in this Christ, just as the merchant there. You can just imagine him, just looking at this pearl now, he's got rid of the rest of his collection, he's sold up all that, and that's now captivating him. And he's just forever looking at it and turning it over and appreciating it. How do you know? It was even better than I thought. It's even more beautiful than I thought when I first saw it. That's what happens when you immerse yourself in Christ. He doesn't become less, he becomes more. He doesn't become kind of less valuable, he becomes more valuable. He saved me and I've learned more about myself since I became a Christian. He saved me and all of that for my sin. Well, that is just even more amazing. I didn't even know that much bad news about myself. I found out more bad news since I became a Christian. And I've been saved from that. And that he's been so kind. And my learning curve, oh, it's been so flat, so slow. And he stayed with me and helped me and encouraged me. And he answers prayers. My prayers, your prayers. Half the time we don't know what we're praying for properly, do we? Yet he knew better than we knew. And we have all of that. And we immerse ourselves in the glory, this humanity and this divinity. And that's a subject I'm going to try and talk about in Salisbury next Saturday there. Tell you next door today how it went. Mystery, immensity. How can we fathom this? There's the Bible inviting us to ponder and think how he's both God and man. in that one person. There's a lifetime's work in that, I'm sure an eternity's work in that. Now get that true Christ. Please, see the value of Him. You'll need to repent. The man sold everything he had. You need to repent of the search that's taken you to the wrong places. You need to acknowledge that your heart just doesn't see it right. That's sin. We're always looking for the wrong thing. We're looking for a cheaper, easier salvation. One that's not going to cost you and me so much. One that's going to be less demanding. As the Lord says, follow me. That means you obey me from here on. You're now under my government and my rules. If you've passed away from the old things now, now it's what I say that goes. What the Bible teaches you, that's your paramount thing. We have to repent because that's not true of us. We've gone our own way. We've chosen our own paths. We made it up as we went along, thought we knew better, where our hopes were to be fulfilled, what would content us. And we have to really turn around. and torch it and say, that was rubbish. I was so, so wrong. But now I see, now I realize I've been missing him all that time. Maybe missing him when he was right there, hiding in plain sight, if you will. That you'd heard the gospel, that you read the Bible, that you maybe heard an on-street preacher on occasion. It will pass. It was, it will pass. But now you won't, because now you see. And now there is the one, utmost value, precious beyond words, and he's within reach of any that would receive him, any that would repent, any that would put their faith in him, that offer is for you. Dear friend, can you not see him now? Can you not believe in him? And we'll sing our final hymn to kind of nail the point for you, compared to Christ is all beside. It has no value. It has no benefit. Take Christ, believe in him. So it is hymn number 684 as we close this morning. Compared with Christ in all the sight. 684.