If you have a Bible, turn to Matthew chapter 13. We're looking at just a few verses this morning. Don't know if it helps anybody, but for me, it's on page 1140. Matthew chapter 13, we're looking at the parable of the hidden treasure and the pearl of great value. And before I start, I just want to ask a question. Have I preached on this here before? I don't think that I have. Does anybody remember me preaching on it? Okay, great. It doesn't matter. Do you guys stand for the reading of the word? Let's do that then. Stand and read together God's word. 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. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word, for 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. I pray, Father, that as we look at this passage this morning, you would open our eyes to see, open our ears to hear, and open our hearts to love the good news of your gospel. I do this, we pray, for we ask it in Christ's name. Amen. Please be seated. So a couple years ago at RUF, I did a series on the parables, and every time we did one, I would make the point that we tend to think about the parables almost like veggie tales, right? They take a story, they take a truth, and they wrap it up in this cute little package and deliver it to us in a memorable way. I think in reality, the parables are a lot more like wrecking balls, because we have our assumptions about the way things work, the way the world operates, the way grace functions, the way Christ loves us, and they're wrong. And so Jesus tells a story that's a wrecking ball that gets behind our assumptions, and then on the backswing, it knocks it all down so that Jesus can rebuild it in a way that's true. in a way that actually reflects the kingdom of God. And this morning we're looking at a parable that I think answers the question, how do we change? Is change possible? Are we able to change? Some of you this morning may think you already know the answer to the question. Some of you think people don't change. Maybe you've been hurt by someone over and over again, and each time they promise things will be different, I'll be different, but after a few weeks or a few days, you're hurt again. Or maybe you yourself have been struggling with some sin your entire life, or some perceived deficiency in your character or your ability your entire life, and you've been fighting against it for so long, with so little to show for your effort that you're convinced that this is just who I am. I'm never going to 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 this parable answers that question. Because again, this parable, like all of them, confronts something about the way we think. The first thing it does is it confronts the way that we think about ourselves, that we think about the ways that humans function. If you can think back to your college philosophy class, you might not remember, but you certainly heard about a man named Descartes. Descartes was trying to destruct from the ground up a way of thinking and living in the world that you could be absolutely certain of. How do I know that I'm not dreaming right now? How do I know that I'm not hallucinating right now and that I'm just standing in a parking lot talking to cars that are driving by? How do I know I'm not crazy? How do I know I'm not plugged into the matrix? How do I know I'm not the victim of some scientific experiment that's just stimulating my brain with electrodes? Well, each of these questions he asked, he dug down, and he said, I can't really know any of these things for sure. But deep down at the bottom of everything, he found one fact, one unassailable truth. I'm asking the question, right? I'm thinking. And if I'm thinking, then I must exist. Right? Cogito ergo sum, if we have any Latin aficionados in the room. I think, therefore, I am. I must exist because I'm thinking. Right? I might be in a computer program, I might be hallucinating, but I am hallucinating. Right? And that is the assumption of our post-Enlightenment world. Right? Man is a thinking thing. You, primarily, according to the world, are a mind. Right? We see this all around us. How do we solve the problems of the world? By education, right? Or by raising awareness. See this all the time on the college campus. People setting up tables and giving away, you know, stickers and water bottles and ask what they're doing. It's like, I'm raising awareness about this issue. And it's like, great, mark me down as aware. It doesn't change anything. Right, we see it in commercials, right? Serious social issue of distracted drivers on the road, right? People who text while driving. How do we keep people from doing this? Well, let's make some public service announcements that show the aftermath of what happens when someone texts while driving and they get into an accident. We want to make sure they know what could happen to them or to others. And all of my students see these commercials and then they get in their car and they text while they drive. You might remember this from G.I. Joe. Right? At the end of every episode of G.I. Joe was a little, almost infomercial. And the tagline at the end was, now you know, and knowing is half the battle. Right? If we know better, we do better. That's the assumption of our world. We believe that what we know, what we think, determines who we are and what we do. But Jesus' stories this morning tell us that that's not actually true. Jesus teaches us that what we love governs who we are and what we do. What we love actually governs what we think. Jesus says in these stories that we are not primarily thinking things, we are primarily loving things. All of our action, all of our energy, all of our time is spent in pursuit, not of what is reasonable or logical or elementary, but in what we treasure and in what we revere. This is what we see in these stories. They're almost striking in their brevity, right? A lot of the parables are a little bit longer. They give us some characters. They have a plot line to them. They kind of woo you in and then surprise you. These stories are so short, it's like Jesus just like saying, hey, real quick, or slapping us in the face to get our attention, right? Because we don't know anything about the man in the field. We don't know anything about the merchant. We don't know anything about the treasure. We don't know anything about the pearl. We don't know anything about the field or their relative wealth or their other relationships. All we see in the stories is this. 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. That's it. These men, whether they're looking for it or not, find something that they find incredibly valuable, and immediately, without consulting parents, or friends, or spouses, which I don't recommend, liquidate all of their assets, buy the whole field, buy the pearl. They do whatever it takes to possess it. It becomes an obsession. And nothing will stand in their way of obtaining this thing. And I think that this parable, Jesus is giving us a picture of ourselves. Because when we treasure something, our entire self is bent toward it. Any time we spend on it will be well spent. Any money we spend on it will not be considered expensive. Anything else we have to give up to get it will be deemed a worthy sacrifice. It's like me when I was in college at NC State. I loved, by the time my tenure at NC State was over, I loved NC State football. That's what Saturdays were for. It wasn't for homework, it wasn't for a part-time job, it wasn't for going on trips. Saturdays were for football. It was not difficult for me to get out of bed early in the morning to go to an NC State football game. It was not oppressive to be in the summer swamp heat of Raleigh, right? To be there for an NC State football game. The canopy that me and my roommates bought so that we could have some shade while we made breakfast or burgers at the tailgate was not expensive. It was money well spent, right? Me, Taking my shirt off and painting my torso red with a White letter on it so that I could be part of 20 other guys spelling out ESPN loves the wolfpack Was not ridiculous, right? It was an act of devotion It was an expression of love for NC State football, and it did not matter what else was going on in my life. Three tests on Monday, senior design project due next week, my grandparents in town visiting, like I'm going to the NC State game. J.P. Morgan puts it like this, anytime that anyone does anything, there's a good reason and a real reason. Right? Consider brushing your teeth this morning. Right? What's the good reason that you did that? To promote dental hygiene, to prevent cavities, all of these things. What's the real reason? You don't want your breath to stink when you greet someone at church this morning. Right? And that's what Jesus is getting at. That behind anything that we do, there's a love. There's a desire. And this is how you tell what you love. What are the non-negotiables in your life? What are the things that no matter what else is going on, this gets my attention, right? It doesn't matter how sick I am, nothing is gonna stand in the way of me going to this class, showing up at work, going to this event. It doesn't matter who else I'm with. When this person calls, I pick up the phone. Doesn't matter how much work I have to do, this thing, this person, this pursuit, this goal demands my attention. So what are the non-negotiable things in your life? Is it your work? Is it your family? Is it your dedication and service to this church? Is it a TV show? That's what it was for me in college. Again, we asked our campus minister to stop holding events on Thursday night because that's when the office aired, and we didn't have streaming services yet. What are the non-negotiable things in your life? There's a secret here. There really aren't any. There are only things that you love that you're unwilling to set aside for something else. Jesus is telling us that what we treasure, what we value, what we find as beautiful, we will give anything and everything for. But there's something else that starts to happen. What we love actually starts to change us. Here's a silly example of that. Some of you might remember the Mobile app candy crush. This little grid of like jelly Beans and lollipops that you swipe and you get three in a row And they disappear and cheerful music plays and sparklers come out. People got addicted to this because they really figured out how our brains are wired and the cycle of immediate gratification and reward and all this. And people would play this game so much that when they close their eyes to sleep at night, there are psychological studies on this, when they close their eyes to sleep, they would see on the back of their eyelids imposed a grid. And they would plan out, OK, if I have this arrangement of blue candies and green candies, how do I do it the best, right? It started to impact them going to sleep. The things that we love start to change us. You see this with our friends. You see this with families. As people grow older, they start to know one another so well and become so alike that they finish one another's sentences. Right? That sometimes they start to look alike. You see one of your children spending time with other people and all of a sudden they've got all these new phrases that they use and all these new hobbies that they like. The things that we love change us. One biblical commentator put it like this, what we revere, we resemble either to our ruin or our restoration. What we revere, we resemble, either to our ruin or our restoration. I think this is Jesus's point in this story. I don't think we're to look for hidden symbolism of what does this mean, what does the field represent, what does the treasure represent. I think Jesus is showing us how our hearts work. That we are not primarily thinking things, we are primarily loving things. That we were made to worship something. to find something incredibly valuable and give ourselves to it. The problem of this story is that we often love the wrong things. Or we love the right things, but in the wrong order, or too much. And one word for that is idolatry. And what we idolize, we imitate. Tim Keller says, an idol is usually a good thing that we make an ultimate thing. And we say, unless I have that, I am nothing. So, for example, what are some things that we might idolize? We might idolize our work. It's a good thing, right? We're called by God in the garden before the fall to work, to be busy, to cultivate, to grow, to bring order to the world. But work, for many, becomes an ultimate thing. Other idols might be family. We're called to care for and provide for our family. As parents, we're called to shepherd our children. We're called to love and provide for and pray for our families. But what happens when your family becomes the ultimate thing? What happens to your relationships when family becomes the ultimate thing? Relationships will get sacrificed on the altar of your children's future. What happens to your time? It goes away. If all of your time, if the greatest good in your life is your family's peace and success, all of your time will be spent towards that. There will be no time for the church. There'll be no time for relationships. There'll be no time for community. What happens to your faith and obedience when your family, and especially the success of your children, becomes an ultimate thing? When your child has an opportunity for that soccer game or that gymnastics performance, and it butts up against Sunday morning worship, which one goes? Which is the ultimate thing? We might idolize the respect of other people, We might idolize our own self-image. Again, we might idolize our work, or our family, or rest, or food, or pleasure, or any number of things. And it's a good exercise for us to go through to say, why is it a good thing? Why does God call me to enjoy food? Why does God call me to seek a good reputation? But what are the dangers when that becomes an ultimate thing? What will that do to my relationships, to my time, to my faith and obedience? Again, what we idolize, we imitate. What we revere, we resemble, either to our ruin or our restoration. What we love, what we treasure, whatever the pearl is, governs what we do. It governs how we think, it governs what we think about, it governs how we spend our time and our money and how we define a good week, how we define success, and on and on and on. When I preached on this, I told my students that this truth, that we are what we love, that we become what we love, is why rules actually aren't that helpful. That's why New Year's resolutions always fizzle out in February. Because it's a rule, it's not a change in our love. But rules, if we follow them, simply wear us out. Or they feed our pride. Rules, when we break them, just make us feel guilty and defeated. Rules, for many, are just an invitation to disobedience. Right? Wet paint. Who doesn't want to touch a bench that has a wet paint sign on it, just to see if it's still wet? Stay off the grass. Don't you kind of want to walk on the grass? Paul says, when I read, don't covet, sin produced in me all kinds of covetousness. At Western Carolina, like at many schools, there's a bell tower right in the middle of campus, rings out the hour when it's working. It's not often working, but when it does, it's beautiful. And at the bottom of the bell tower, it's supported on each corner, but it's open in the middle. But there's a rule, right? There's this unwritten rule at campus that if you walk underneath the bell tower before you graduate, you won't graduate on time. You'll either end up transferring, or you'll have to take a fifth year, or a victory lap semester. All of my students have walked under the bell tower. In the cover of night, at two in the morning, on their way back from cookout, or from hanging out in somebody's dorm, they look around, and there's nobody there, and they're like, I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna break the rule. Because the rule says don't, and our heart says you can't tell me what to do. But rules are comfortable, they let us measure how well we're doing, but they never actually change us. Change in our actions, in our thoughts, and in our lives. Real change only happens when there's a change in what we love. How do we change? We need a new love. We need a new affection. We need to find something else more beautiful than our family, than our work, than our reputation, than our comfort. But now maybe you see the problem. How do I do that? How do I change what I love? Right? The prevailing narrative of our world is that the heart wants what the heart wants. And while our world says that therefore justifies whatever the heart wants, we say that doesn't justify it, but I still can't change what I want. This is the premise of every romantic comedy. Right? You remember You've Got Mail, right? Meg Ryan's got this cute little bookstore, and Tom Hanks is the big box brick and mortar store that comes in and puts her out of business. But her heart wants what the heart wants and they end up together. There's no way that happens. But we love what we love. Our hearts are 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 the good news this morning is that it can be replaced. An old Presbyterian pastor called this the expulsive power of a new affection. When something new comes into our life and we find it lovely and beautiful, it pushes out all other loves. Anybody here ever had their heart broken? Gotten dumped, maybe? I see some kids who are about to enter adolescence. Heartbreak, I'm sorry, is coming. How do you get over a breakup? Right? It's hard, you're so in love, you have so many shared memories and inside jokes, and it hurts to watch that TV show now because that was your show, and you can't go back to that ice cream place because that's where you had your first kiss, and your friends are there for you, but you're just broken, right? Humpty-dumpty times a thousand. What helps you get over a breakup? Somebody new coming along, right? If you're upset because Jeremy broke your heart and then Derek walks into your life, like, who's Jeremy, right? This new affection, this new love has crowded out, has pushed out this old disordered love. This is what it takes to change. We must fall in love with something else. We must fall in love with someone else. Change is possible in our lives, but the only way that we will know any kind of lasting change for the better is to fall more in love with Jesus. And how do you do that? Well, the same way you grow in love for anyone, you spend time with them, right? Speak to him in prayer. Hear from him in his word. Admire the beauty of Christ in His Word. Admire the beauty of Christ in one another. This is one of the ways that you grow in love for someone as you spend time with their friends. Recently, just a couple weeks ago, I had the chance to take my family to spend time with the families of my college roommates. We got this giant Airbnb for four families that have between us nine kids under the age of six, and it was chaos, and it was beautiful, and on the way home, my wife said, like, I never got to see you interact with your friends like this, and I feel like I know you better, because I've seen you interact with your friends. Do you want to know Christ better? Interact with his friends. The great blessing of Christian community is that we get to hear from others about how great Jesus is. The way that he's loved all of us so faithfully despite our failures. The way that he's stuck with us so perfectly despite our mistakes and our waywardness. And as you get to know Christ, as you spend time with his friends, as you talk to him, as you listen to him, Your love for him will start to crowd out those other loves in your heart. And as that happens, as you grow in love for Jesus, you'll start to find that the time you spend with him isn't costly. The things you give up for him aren't a sacrifice anymore. They're reasonable. He becomes the new non-negotiable in your life. And you start to change. Because what we revere, who we revere, we resemble. And in this case, not to our ruin, but to our restoration. Let me try and help push you down that road just a little bit this morning in conclusion. I've been talking this whole time as if the parable is about our hearts, about how we operate, about how the thing that we love is what our life is aimed at. is the direction that we change in, is the thing that we spend our time and energy and money on, and I think that it is about that. I think Jesus says, you are like a merchant, you are like this man out in the field who finds a treasure, and you will give your life for what you love. But I think there's another layer to this story. I think this is also autobiographical. What if this parable isn't just about the things that we do for love, but about the thing that Jesus did for love. What if we're not the merchant and the man in the field? What if we're the treasure? What if he's the one who found something of great value, his church, his bride, and gave up everything that he might make it his own? What if thou who wast rich beyond all splendor, all for love's sake, became poor? Doesn't the fact that Jesus loves you like that help you to see him as beautiful? Doesn't it help you to respond to him in love more and more? Look at Jesus in all his beauty, and he will change you. Let's pray. Father, again, we thank you for your word and the truth that it reveals about us, the truth that reveals about you, and about what you've done to bring us back to yourself. Father, help us to see Christ's love for us. May we never seek to grow in love for Christ merely out of our own strength or out of our mere force of will, but out of seeing him more clearly. Father, I pray that as we reflect on this parable today, as we reflect on the love of God for us in the person of Jesus Christ, who gave up the glory of heaven, who gave up the riches of his inheritance to make us his own, that that would melt our hearts, that that would reorder our loves, and that as we behold him in his beauty And we see him smiling at his bride who is a mess, but he has made his own. Father, I pray that that would start to change us. Do this, we pray, for we ask it in his name. Amen.