Very good to be back after that long break. And I'm glad to see you all here. Turn with me to Matthew 13. Today's lesson is kind of a catch up from last semester. We're supposed to have gotten through this lesson, but if you remember way back at the beginning, Hurricane Irma happened, and we started a week late. And so this one doesn't fit neatly into the package I have for this semester. We want to make sure we cover it, because there's lots of good stuff in it. So this is the last couple parables in that section that we're going to do today. The parable of the mustard seed, and of the yeast, and then two parables about the great treasure. So Matthew 13. We're going to skip around just a little bit. Matthew 13, beginning with verse 31. He put another parable before them saying, the kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown, it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches. He told them another parable. The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour till it was all leavened. I'm going to skip down to verse 44. The kingdom of heaven is like 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. And then skipping to verse 51, have you understood all these things they said to him? Yes. And he said to them, therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old. The skipping around that we did just now was because some of the explanations of the parables we already studied were in different places throughout and I had kind of lumped them in certain ways. So normally I don't cherry picking, jump around like that. But we're starting a new year and I want to ask you a question. How do you feel about going into a new year? If you think about it, a year ago, boy, this has been a really strange year past. The big election had happened. We were looking forward to an inauguration of a new president. There was a lot of anger, a lot of fist shaking, a lot of rhetoric going on both sides, and then we've had all these natural disasters happening. And so as you look forward to the new year, do you do that with a sense of, wow, good, we've got a good year, clean slate, it's going to be good, or do you look at it with a feeling of anxiety, thinking, oh my goodness, what's going to happen now? Are you naturally an optimist or a pessimist? Is the glass half empty or half full? Or, to answer the question, somebody like me, it's really both, and let's talk about why. I like to think of myself as sort of a happy pessimist. And by that I mean I'm kind of an optimistic pessimist in that I don't expect a whole lot of good right now, but ultimately I know all will be well. And so maybe I don't dip as low as I would. Maybe that's my coping mechanism, and it could be unhealthy if I just don't hope for anything, just expect the worst all the time. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying I don't expect that this year is going to be free from trouble. But I know that all is well, ultimately. I know that God is with us. I know that heaven's coming. I know that God's plan is proceeding on schedule. But I want to talk, the reason I ask that question is, I didn't realize this until I started studying this parable with the commentaries. I thought I understood it. I thought, you know, there's one explanation for this, and it's pretty simple. And what am I actually going to say about this? It's really simple. And then I read the commentaries and found out there's actually two different, very different interpretations of these two parables, the mustard seed and the yeast. So let me just read those again real quick. He put another parable before them saying, the kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown, it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches. He told them another parable, the kingdom of heaven is like leaven or yeast that a woman took and hid or mixed into three measures of flour till it was all leavened. And you know yeast, those of you who have baked. We're probably losing this skill because everything's packaged now, but those of you who have ever done like baked real bread or you put the yeast in and you mix it in and it makes it all puff up, right? Unless it's old and isn't working right. But the idea is the yeast gets in it and it puffs it up. And so I've lumped these two parables together because they're kind of lumped together here in the scripture and also because they seem to be making the same point. But there's two different interpretations of these two parables together. And both of them have adherents who are good, conservative, reasonable scholars who are well within the accepted framework of the PCA, and they take very opposite views of this. So I'm going to give you first of all the optimistic interpretation, which is the only interpretation I had ever heard, which is probably the one you're familiar with. That is that the spread of Christ's kingdom throughout the world over time going to eventual triumph in the world is what's being pictured here. So the mustard seed that starts out tiny and grows big is illustrating the kingdom of God. Starting small, Jesus came and inaugurated the kingdom. And then slowly over time, it's grown through time and space and eventually will reach the whole world. This view is generally espoused by those of the post-millennial and some of the all-millennial schools of eschatology now. If you're not familiar with those terms, what that means is post-millennial eschatology, which is studied in times, believed that Jesus came and brought the gospel and As it spreads throughout the world, things are going to get better and better. And eventually, when it's come to maturity and the world is what it should be, then the Lord will return. Amillennial doesn't really take that like Revelation, the book of Revelation. doesn't really interpret that literally and chronologically, but sees it rather as repetitive pictures of all of church history. And so they don't tend to believe actually in a literal millennium. They say that's a picture of the church age right now. And then your pre-millennialists believe that the rapture is going to take place, generally, before the millennial kingdom of Christ, where he comes and reigns for 1,000 years, literally, on the earth. And at the end of that time is the great judgment and all that. So there's a lot of different ways that people have pieced together what we have in Revelation, the Old Testament prophecies, and what Jesus has said about the last times. And I love this one thing. I love many things about this denomination. But one of the things I really appreciate is we are not forced to take a position on this. We have people within our denomination who believe all of those and some combination of them and little bits of this and little bits of that. We really don't know how it's going to turn out. But you see how this optimistic interpretation would fit very nicely into a post-millennial view where Christ is going to return. After the gospel has spread, done its work, and because of what Jesus started, things are going to get better. Now, you don't have to be post-millennial to take this view. I am not post-millennial. I didn't grow up that way, and yet this is the view I always heard and accepted. So, what this view says then, interpreting this is that the kingdom of God started small at the time of Christ, a small beginning. Quiet growth is what you see taking place over time. So Jesus initiated the kingdom during his earthly ministry, intending that it would grow and spread over geography and over generations, so through space and time. And he did not intend for the coming of his kingdom to be immediate and apocalyptic at that time. But that's what everybody expected. That's what they were thinking was going to happen when the Messiah arrived. But he came to begin at humbly and small and to grow eventually to maturity. And so the proponents of this optimistic view say that's what we see pictured here with the mustard seed and the yeast. And we see the gospel message then transforming cultures as it spreads. And we've seen this to some degree. Wherever the gospel has gone, hearts and minds are transformed and cultures are changed. You look at the whole basis of Western culture, art, music, science, all those things are a result of that worldview. Everywhere the gospel goes, you see the condition of women and children and the poor and even in the treatment of animals, that their condition is elevated. You see hospitals and hospices and schools and orphanages and homeless shelters are started. You see that slaves are free. Now, there have been some notable periods in history where that was not the case, and people have used religion to justify slavery. But by and large, that is not a correct understanding of the scripture, by the way. There's no way you can justify slavery from scripture. But generally, wherever the gospel goes, there's a concern for those who are oppressed, for the poor who are enslaved, because the gospel raises us. We are all equal in the sight of God. We're children of God. And so generally, you see crime decrease. You see the quality of life increases. You see literacy and industry are taught, and the economy improves. So generally, wherever the gospel goes into a new place that has been dark and without the gospel, things change as people come to the Lord. So we do see that. Now, those of us who have grown up in America We kind of miss that. We have the luxury of sitting here and looking at all the things that are still wrong and saying, see, you are a Christian country, and this is what Christianity has done. No, no. Look at the big picture of the world, and you see that as the gospel spreads, cultures change for the better. So this view, this optimistic view that we do see certainly evidence of, fits with different pictures in the Old Testament prophets as well. If you go back and read Daniel's interpretation, Prophet Daniel's interpretation of King Nebuchadnezzar's dream, the one about where he saw this big statue, an idol, with the gold head and the silver and the bronze and all the way down to the iron and clay mixed at its feet. And it was really impressive. And then in his dream he saw there was a stone cut from a mountain by a hand that was invisible. And that stone came hurtling down at the statue and broke it, just decimated it into dust. And then when there's nothing left of that idol, that little stone grew and grew and grew and became a mountain that filled the whole world. And so that's a similar picture of this interpretation of the mustard seed growing to maturity, the yeast leavening all the dough. Then think about the word of the Lord through the prophet Zechariah to the exiles who had returned to build the temple, rebuild the temple after the exile. When the Lord says not to despise the day of small beginnings, because the people coming back to build the temple were looking, and this is pitiful little effort. They remembered what the temple had been or had been told what the temple had been. And they were discouraged because it was starting so small. And the Lord says, don't despise the day of small things, because he will make their efforts to prosper, and he's going to see it through. And that, of course, literally historically applied to that time. But in a larger sense, it's considered prophecy, a picture of the kingdom of God. Jesus will build his church and it will come to maturity and and be what it's supposed to be. So this first interpretation of the mustard seed in the yeast seemed like a no-brainer to me. I mean it just that's what I'd always heard and so as I started reading and one of my favorite commentators who I respect very much said there was a different view and started to present it. At first, I was like, no way, no, okay, somebody always has to come up with something new, you know, somebody had to write their PhD in religion, and so they came up with this bizarre view, and at first, I really thought there was nothing to it, but as I went on reading, I thought, no, there's really something here. So the second view, which I call the pessimistic view, is James Boyce is the one who I was reading that said this. He didn't come up with it, but he agrees with it. And he says that it represents the mustard seed growing into a tree and the yeast leavening all the dough represents actually the bureaucratic growth and spread of corruption throughout the church over time. And that this was a warning that Christ gave. And I confess, when he said that, I was like, no way. Well, let me explain the terms. Bureaucratic is used in the sense of official, political, administrative. In other words, the nominal, visible church we're talking about. It's the form of religion. It's what people see in the world when they look at Christianity. They look at the church. So proponents of this pessimistic interpretation see these two parables as a warning about the enemy's work in and through the visible church. Now, where do they get this from? First point is they see the mustard seed growing into a tree as unnatural growth being pictured here. They say a mustard seed does not become a tree. It's a shrub. And the people of Jesus' day would have known this. And if Jesus were trying to paint a picture of natural, healthy growth of the kingdom of God, why didn't he use an oak tree or a cedar of Lebanon to make this point? So they look at the mustard seed turning into a tree as sort of an abnormal mutation. And I have to say, I don't find this argument very convincing, because Jesus usually used common everyday things that people would see in front of them. Most people, now oak trees, I don't even know if they grow over there in that part of the world, but cedar of Lebanon, well, they were imported from Lebanon. They would have known what they were, but Jesus, usually as he was teaching, would point to something they could see right in front of them and make a point. And Jesus is famous for the use of hyperbole, where he'll overstate something, almost to a comic degree, to make a point. And so I confess, as I read that, I'm like, yep, there's nothing to this view. This is, yeah, it's easily explained. I don't think that the mustard seed thing is a mutation. I think Jesus was making a point. Here's a little seed. It grows in your garden. It gets big. It gets big enough that birds can nest in it, small to big. Great. Their second contention, though, is that birds, the birds nesting in the branches of this little mustard plant that's become a tree, birds were just used by Jesus in the parable before this to symbolize the devil. So if you think about the parable of the sower, where he's going out and throwing the seed and some of it lands on the hard ground and the birds come and snatch it away, the birds in that parable are pictured as agents of the devil who are stealing the word of God away before it can take root in somebody's heart. And so why would he suddenly change his symbols when he's going into the next one, they say. So according to them, The birds nesting in the mustard tree are a picture of Satan's agents at home in the bureaucratic visible church and supported by it. Now, it is true that Jesus just used birds in the parable of the sower to represent the work of Satan. However, birds are not usually pictured by Jesus or in the rest of scripture as a particularly evil symbol. Usually they're just kind of neutral or benign or even kind of a positive symbol. So go back to the prophecy of Daniel again in another dream that Nebuchadnezzar had that Daniel interpreted for him. He had this dream about a tree that grew large and had beautiful fruit and beautiful leaves and animals took shelter under it and birds nested in it. And that was a picture of Nebuchadnezzar and his power and authority and how the nations and all of creation was under him and took refuge of some sort under his authority. And so the picture of the birds there is not a bad thing at all. It's kind of a benign symbol or even a positive symbol. Birds, making the birds an issue here. I think birds are kind of an ambiguous symbol and I'm not sure that you can peg them one way or the other there. But it's true that Jesus just used birds in the parable before that as a symbol of evil. Okay. But the third point is more compelling. This is where it begins to click with me. Yeast in scripture is almost always representing evil. Now, sometimes it's just yeast. It's not symbolic. But when it's used symbolically throughout scripture in the Old and in the New Testaments and in Jewish ritual culture today, It's almost universally an evil symbol. It's a symbol of sin that you have to get rid of. So at the Passover time, you make bread without leaven, without yeast, to symbolize not having sin. And so the Jewish people would go through their house and get rid of anything that contains yeast as a picture of cleansing from sin. And so I think, you know, that is true. Yeast almost always represents evil in the scripture. So that would be surprising if the Lord would take that then and use it as a good thing, a picture of the way the church is supposed to spread. Because in the New Testament, well, just several chapters beyond this, Jesus will warn his disciples about the yeast of the Pharisees. who were promoting this legalistic religion, and it's, when he talks about the yeast of the Pharisees, they don't get it, because they're interpreting it very literally, and we'll get to that when we study it. But what he's trying to say is, he's picturing their evil influence. And so, yeah, yeast is kind of, that would be kind of surprising if Jesus used it then as a symbol of what's supposed to be taking place, and this is a good, positive thing. Although it could be, it could be. The fourth factor in this pessimistic interpretation is the structural placement of these parables where they fall in Matthew's account of them. It seems like a reasonable progression of thought regarding the work of the devil to oppose the purity and effectiveness of the gospel. Because we've just come from the parable of the weeds, which we studied last semester, if you can remember back that long. Parable of the weeds, where the farmer goes out and plants good seed in his field, and then the devil comes along. and plants all these weeds. And they grow up and the servants are surprised and say, should we go pull them out? And he says, no, I don't want you to damage the good stuff growing up. Just let them grow together till the end. At the harvest time, we'll separate them out. So that's the parable that Matthew places immediately before this. And that is a picture of the devil's work. And so the thought here then is this is a reasonable progression from that parable. Now Jesus goes on to warning us about dangers to the church and bad things that we're going to see happen about the devil working in and through the church. So and then this whole little section of parables that we were studying last semester ends with the parable of the net, which we already covered because I lumped it together with one of the others. But the parable of the net is that net that's thrown into the water and all the fish are drawn out and then the men sit there and sort them out, the good ones from the bad ones. And Jesus explains that one and says, that's basically a picture of the judgment and the angels will sort out the good from the bad, the true believers from the unbelievers. And you get the sense that the net then is a picture of the visible church But God knows who are really his within that, and he'll sort it out at Judgment Day. So it seems like structurally where it's placed, it makes this more pessimistic interpretation make sense, because Jesus has just been discussing the work of the devil, and then he ends this whole section with, again, this sorting that's not going to happen until the final judgment. A fifth observation that this view has in its favor, this pessimistic view, I think, is that it explains what we see today, doesn't it? A secular church that uses the language of faith to preach a different gospel. And so we have whole churches. Think of your classic televangelist on TV. Not all of them are bad, but a lot of them, it's this, It uses the language of faith, but what it's going for is political power, or the prosperity gospel, or self-help, therapeutic religion, all these things that there's maybe a little basis for them in the scripture, but that is not the gospel. But they've appropriated the Christian faith into a very worldly mindset. And so we do see that. And there is widespread corruption and hypocrisy in the visible church. There are forces of evil at work in the church at large, acquiring positions of power and influence. We see whole denominations that have basically Not that there are no believers in them, but the leadership in their stances are basically apostates. They're not even preaching the Bible. They don't believe in the authority of the scripture. They don't believe in the atonement of Christ. And they teach this kind of prosperity or politics or self-help or psychology or something like that. Now, Jesus and his apostles repeatedly warned that false teachers would come to the church and would be on the lookout for them. They have come and they continue to come. the church is continually in need of reformation. And so you see throughout history the church falling into horrible sin. And then a work of the Holy Spirit will come. There will be a reformation of some sort. The big one that we're all familiar with is the Protestant Reformation. The church had become so corrupt at that time that the reformers came along then, and there was the big split. Now, both the Catholic church and the Protestant church were changed by that event. Let me just say that. But the church is continually in need of reformation. One of the things I was reading is a statement by Martin Marty, who's back a generation or so ago. I believe he was a Catholic bishop or somebody. But he was kind of analyzing the scene of Christianity at large and analyzing the evangelical movement of that time and saying, by the end of the century, Evangelical Christians were going to be the most worldly group in the world. And you know what? He was being generous. Well before the turn of the century, we see that. So we can't just say, oh, God did this great work once. Rest on our laurels. We're fine. The church is continually being attacked by Satan, continually being corrupted, and continually needs to be cleansed and brought back to the truth. So anyway, the pessimistic view, I think, explains very well what we see. Now, that's not all of what we see. I want to just compare these two interpretations for a moment now. They seem to be completely opposite to each other. And it's kind of threw me for a loop at first, because I'm like, OK, if very godly scholarly people within my frame of trust can see this so differently, how are we supposed to interpret this? We kind of got to pick one or the other, right? There's really only one. one issue of disagreement here, and that is whether or not the kingdom of God will be completely victorious in this age. So that's where you see the postmillennial view as different from, say, a premillennial view or an amillennial view. Will the church really be purified and come to that place where the world is what it should be because the gospel has gone forth? And then the Lord will return? Or will we see kind of a mixed bag? And only at the return of the Lord will the world be made what it should be. So that's the main point of disagreement between these two. But there's a lot of similarity between these two. How do we know which point Jesus was trying to make? I really don't know. But understand that both sides of this issue, both interpreters, would say that, one, they would agree that Christians are sent out into the whole world to preach the gospel, and they expect it to make a difference. They would agree that Christianity has grown remarkably from small beginnings into a major world religion. Can't deny that. Anybody with eyeballs would agree that there are many evils in the church which have developed over time and keep cropping up and coming back. And both sides would agree that Christ will ultimately purify his church and be victorious over all the forces of evil. So the question then is, is that gonna happen in this age through our efforts of spreading the gospel? Is that gonna come to completion then? Or will we see this corruption going on to the end? So was Jesus painting a positive picture of encouragement? or giving a pessimistic warning to us to prepare us for the ugly episodes of church history, which would soon follow, that are going to take place in the interim before his return to set things right. The one undeniable element that both of these parables present, no matter how you interpret them, is that regardless of the interpretation you choose, both presents a process over time as the kingdom grows. And maybe that's where we need to focus. This corresponds to what we see in church history. And I think in this, Jesus was addressing the people, the expectations of his disciples. See, the people of Jesus' day were expecting the Messiah to charge on the scene in apocalyptic glory, in full battle dress, and immediately vanquish all his enemies, and instantly establish his physical geopolitical kingdom of peace and justice on Earth. They thought that was all going to happen at once. And Jesus had to tamp down expectations repeatedly throughout the Gospels. People wanted to take him and make him king by force. They wanted him to do this right now and he would slip away and at times say things purposely to offend people and put them off so that they wouldn't rush him and make him king. Jesus is teaching here that his kingdom would begin small and humble and take time to grow. And I believe Jesus was preparing his church for a long process, regardless of which interpretation you take. He's saying this is not something that's going to happen instantaneously. And so now, what's the Taylor position on this? I said I'm the kind of person that wants to say, the glass is both half empty and half full, and here's why. I think that we see that the true kingdom of God is advancing, and that the gospel will reach all nations, and we see powerful change. And I believe the scripture teaches that there will be a great ingathering of souls, but I think the scripture also teaches that there's going to be a great apostasy marked by false prophets, false religion, and persecution of true believers. And again, going back to Daniel's prophecy, one of the things he says at the very end when Daniel's asking the angel who's come to him, how's this going to happen? What's going on? And he says, don't worry, Daniel. Not going to happen in your lifetime. And then he says, the righteous are going to shine like the stars. I mean, they're basically, they're going to get it. They're going to bring many to the Lord, but the wicked will get more and more wicked. So the light will shine more and more brightly and the darkness will be darker and darker and you're going to see that contrast. And so I think I don't know which of the positions Jesus was trying to take here with this, if he was trying to be optimistic or pessimistic or whatever, but I think we see them both supported by scripture, both of those interpretations. So I think we see both the advance of the true church and corruption of the visible church, and they're going on simultaneously. That's what I think. And I think this is good for us to keep in mind because we can easily become discouraged by the slow progress that we see in the church. Why isn't the church, why don't we get it by now? How many thousand years has it been? We're disillusioned by the corruption that we find and the evil that we find within the visible church. You cannot deny it. I mean, listen to the news. It's so discouraging when you find somebody in religious leadership who has been stealing money or abusing children or is teaching outright heresy. It happens. What do you do with that? Do you chuck the whole thing and say Christianity just can't be true? Remember this and take heart. Jesus said it would happen. None of this surprises or discourages him. Remember the prophecy of Isaiah that Matthew referred to in the previous chapter last semester. He's quoting from Isaiah 42, this prophecy of the Messiah. And he said, this is Isaiah, the Lord speaking through Isaiah. Here is my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight. I will put my spirit on him and he will bring justice to the nations. He will not shout or cry out or raise his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out. In faithfulness he will bring forth justice. He will not falter or be discouraged till he establishes justice on earth. And in his law, the islands will put their hope. Now is this not a picture of the Messiah? You know, he didn't come and start a revolution. He did not come in apocalyptic glory and change everything immediately. But you see his truth going forth to the nations, even to the far-flung islands way out there on the edges of their consciousness at the time. People missed it, but it's there, the slow process in the Old Testament. We tend to take the highlights of the prophecies and lump them all together and assume it's all going to happen at once. But there's evidence in the Old Testament that it was going to take time. And Jesus certainly is presenting that it will take time. So that's important for us to know so that we don't become discouraged. And so that when you hear some liberal scholar that says, Now, Jesus really expected that his kingdom was going to take off immediately, and his disciples thought that too. And so when it didn't happen the way he expected, and he ended up dying, and then he didn't come back like they thought he was coming back any minute, then they kind of decided, oh, well, what are we going to do? Let's make our religion out of this. And they changed Christianity to become what it is today. No, no. Jesus was clearly teaching. If you don't get anything else from these two parables, you understand that he was projecting a long time frame here. Now maybe his disciples didn't get it. There was a movement in the church at the time where people quit their jobs and sat around and expected to be raptured out and you know obviously that didn't happen and that wasn't what Jesus taught. So anyway keep that in mind. Now I'm going to jump into the last little set of parables here, the treasure parables. Remember, we already dealt with the net, which really is the end of this section, but we already talked about that last semester. So talk about these parables about great treasure. Let me read them again. Verse 34. Nope, that's not it. Not verse 34. It's verse 44. The kingdom of heaven is like 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. You might not realize it, but we're all looking for treasure, aren't we? Maybe not consciously, but we all have little treasures that we gather. We, certain things that just bring us delight and joy or that we think are going to make our life worth living or this is what life is all about. And I think God put that in us to draw us to him. And we all make choices. If we're reasonable and step back and look at the big picture at all, we understand we can't have everything, so something's gonna go. So we sacrifice for what we love most. We might give up other things that we kinda like or that we like a lot, but this thing is more important, and so sacrifices are made to, in a sense, purchase that one thing that is priceless to us. We see this everywhere, and so many of the dysfunctions in our lives come from trying to find our treasure in the wrong source. Think about the person, the man that throws himself into his career to find his meaning and purpose there. to the point where it destroys his health, it destroys his family, it alienates him from everyone, and it ruins his life. But that's where he's looking for his treasure. Or think of a drug addict who'd do anything for one more hit, because in that can taste, even if it's false, but for a moment, that sense of well-being and pleasure that we were created for, that we can't find here. We're all looking for treasure. what we choose also causes a lot of the conflict. If I value this thing and my husband values this thing, we're not worshiping the same idols, we're going to fight a lot, right? But we all tend to do that. What Jesus is presenting here is what we were made for, actually finding that. There's a story, and I could not find my book. I wanted to read it to you so I'd get all the details correct. But you remember I'm always quoting and reading little passages from Chuck Colson's book, The Body, about the church. There's a story in there. He tells a lot of stories from Eastern Europe, the countries that were former Soviet bloc countries. And one of the stories he tells is of a ranking army officer, and I can't remember which country it was, that found Jesus. Jesus found him, he came to the Lord. And that, of course, under communism is illegal and punishable severely. And so they eventually found out about this, that this man's a Christian, gave him the opportunity to recant it, and he wouldn't. And so they called out the army this one day, and they were all having a big parade. And then they stopped, and they took this guy, and they pulled him up in front of everyone, and confronted him with having espoused Christianity. And he wouldn't recant it. And so right there in front of everybody, they stripped him of his rank. His wife and kids are in the front row watching the parade. His wife won't even look at him. His kids are like, what? So he loses in that one day. He loses his job, his home, his family, any respect he had. Why would you do that? His wife didn't get it. Why would you do this to our family? The treasure parables explain that motive, why we see that happening. We see Christianity persecuted throughout the world today. We see people giving up everything for it. And we haven't had to do that here. And we can kind of get this attitude, God requires that? Well, you're not getting what they're getting. Why would a martyr go to the Colosseum and die with a smile on their face singing hymns over a religion? Oh, it's more than a religion. Well, these treasure parables are, in one, there's treasure hidden in a field that this guy just kind of stumbles upon. And another one is a merchant who goes out searching specifically for this pearl of great price. So let's talk about the process of discovery. We see two different things in these parables. This is basically the only difference that we see, short of superficial details. And that is how they come across this treasure. Each of these parables presents a different scenario for the discovery. First one, we see an unexpected discovery. This guy's maybe out taking a stroll, walking through this field, and somehow, you might say it seems accidentally, a fortunate accident, he stumbles across this hidden treasure. Sometimes, God reveals himself to people that are not seeking him. Scripture says that in the prophecy of Isaiah in chapter 65, God says, I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me. I was found by those who did not seek me. And that's an act of grace, where one day you're just going on about your life and then suddenly God opens your eyes and you see the treasure. In the second parable, the pearl of great price is found as the result of a determined search. It's the end of a focused quest. This merchant is out there looking for something of supreme value. So sometimes, often, God will draw a person to search. He'll just put this restlessness in a soul that says, there's got to be more. There's got to be something out there. I don't know what it is, but I've got to find it. And I'm not going to rest until I do. And God said to the prophet Jeremiah in Jeremiah 29, he's speaking to the exiles who have been punished for their sins, sent out into the foreign countries and he's saying I'm gonna bring you back and he says you will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart I will be found by you and so God, you know, we notice the first one as an act of grace that suddenly, boom, somebody's eyes are open and they see it. But it's also an act of grace that God would put that desire in our hearts to find him. And what we often don't realize is that's God's way of finding us, of allowing us to find him, of drawing us on. And so have you ever felt like God was hiding himself from you? You can look at this as a one time coming to salvation thing, but it also happens throughout the Christian life. Now I'm one of these weird people and maybe you've experienced this and you're not weird, so maybe I'm okay after all. Some days I'll be driving down the road and my mind will just kind of wander for a minute and all of a sudden I look and I don't know where I am. And I'm just like, Where am I? I suddenly am totally disoriented. And it takes me a couple minutes. Wait a minute. What was I doing this whole time I was driving? How did I avoid an accident? I don't know. But it's just kind of that sense of you wake up and suddenly everything that you thought you knew is gone and you're disoriented. And sometimes I have that spiritually. I have the sense that I'm going along spiritually in my little car and driving along and everything's good and I know where I am. And then all of a sudden I have this moment where it's just like, wait. Is this real? Where am I? How did I get here? And I think many saints experience that or have experienced it. Some of them quite catastrophically fallen into horrible sin and been brought out of it by the Lord and others just these times where it's dry and they're like, wow, what's going on? If you've ever felt that, like God is hiding himself from you. understand that that's an invitation to seek him more deeply. Jesus said back in his Sermon on the Mount that we studied before, ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives. He who seeks finds, and to him who knocks the door will be opened. Now the verb, we mentioned before, the verbs used here in the original Greek mean to ask and keep on asking, to seek and keep on seeking, to knock and keep on knocking. It's a persistence. Keep doing it, so don't give up. If God has hidden himself from you, he's placed this desire in your heart, he intends to be found by you. Stick with it. So that's the one difference that we see between these two parables, is one kind of accidentally stumbles on the treasure and the other one has been out seeking it. And God can reveal himself to people in both ways. Now, although the ways in which these men discover their treasure is different, their response to the discovery is the same. And we learn some pretty significant things from this. First notice that each man's response is personal. I want this for myself. I must have it. I will do whatever it takes. I will pay whatever price to get this for myself. I will go out and rebury this treasure so that no one else is going to find it and take it away from me. And I'll sell everything I have and buy that field that it's in because that treasure is going to be mine. Or I have found this pearl of great price. I'm going to sell all my other treasures so that I can have that pearl. I want this one. This is perfect. This is priceless. This is exactly what I've been looking for. And so the response is personal. Now, don't get into, oh, they're being selfish. They shouldn't do that. That's not the point that he's making. The point is that it draws you personally. And so when you encounter the kingdom of heaven, it's a personal thing. It has to impact you personally. You want it. And you are going to do whatever it takes to make it yours. Now second, notice that each man's response involves his whole person. Each denomination has its little quirks and its great strengths. And attached to its great strength, the flip side of it is some horrible weakness. None of us have it right. There's pros and cons to everything. But in the PCA, The Presbyterians, we tend to be very intellectual, and we want to spell it out, and we want you to understand it, and that's a good thing, that's a wonderful thing. The weakness, the flip side is that can often turn into, it's just all up here, that's all it is. I'm smarter than you are, and I got it. We see here that the gospel impacts the whole person. And we see this, first of all, in recognizing the treasure. These people, they come across it, they're either looking for it or they stumble upon it, but they recognize it. It engages their mind. They know what it is. So think about, if you ever watch the Antique Roadshow or one of those things, people come in with their little junk and they, is this valuable or not? But somebody trained in that, they know this is valuable. Or no, that's not. These people, when they're confronted with the gospel, they recognize it as treasure. Their minds engage. They understand its worth. Secondly, they desire the treasure. It captures their heart. They're irresistibly drawn to this thing. Think about, you know, on a lesser scale, maybe something really beautiful that you've seen, a piece of jewelry or an outfit of clothing or a particular house that you just love and you just, you know, it's not even a rational thing, it's just your heart is drawn to it, it just captures your imagination. And that's what we see impacting a person, when they see the glory of the gospel, that it captures their heart. Then we see these men resolving to have it, and so it involves their will, where they determine, I am gonna have this no matter what. I'm gonna do what it takes. And so this is a forceful determination. It requires the will, a choice, a decision. And then finally we see them making the purchase. So it requires action. It's not just about understanding something. They actually have to go out and do it. They make every effort to obtain this thing. They follow through and they don't rest until the transaction is complete. This is no duty or obligation or half-hearted commitment that we try to force on people sometimes. When we see the treasure, but they don't see it as treasure. You better take this or you're going to hell. That's not what's being pictured here. Your whole being is captured by this. This is joyous sacrifice of everything else to gain what your heart loves most. Why else would that soldier in the former Soviet country give up everything he had for Christ? It's not duty. It's not fear. It's that Jesus is worth everything to him. He's seen that treasure for what it is, and you hear stories like that again and again and again coming out of the persecuted church. So to that person, it is totally worth it to sell everything else that he owns in order to buy the treasure he'd found. And he considers this the best bargain ever. It's like he can't wait to get his money out there, get it away so he can have that thing. And that's what seeing the kingdom of God is like for those who experience that grace. Third, understand that this personal, joyous, determined, active, committed response is evidence of grace. Now, we've got to make this really clear. This is not teaching. This parable is not teaching that we need to pay for our own salvation, that we need to earn it. So you could, if you're coming at this parable with a particular mindset, Okay, so I just need to sacrifice a lot and God will let me into heaven. That's not what this parable is about. We need to understand that the very fact that a person finds and recognizes that treasure that's offered to us in Christ is evidence of God's sovereign grace already at work in that person's life. Otherwise they wouldn't recognize it, they wouldn't want it, they wouldn't see it. And am I just, living on my Presbyterian doctrine here, and I'm going to hound you to death about it. No, go back to what we already studied in Matthew 11, where Jesus prays this prayer when he's confronted these cities that won't repent, and then he's looking at his followers who have, they've seen it, they've got it, and he prays, I praise you, Father, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Paul told the Corinthians, 2 Corinthians 4, the God of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel and the glory of Christ. But God, who said, let light shine out of darkness, has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. So naturally we're blind, we're dead, we don't see, we're not seeking. It's an act of sovereign grace. either that your eyes are suddenly opened and you see it and you get it, or that God has put that desire to search until you find it in your heart. And so it's not teaching a work salvation, it's showing us the motivation of a true Christian. I was thinking of the hymn, Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken, this verse from it. Fleeting is the worldling's treasure, all his boasted pomp and show, solid joys, and lasting treasure, none but Zion's children know. And so many hymns deal with that. Let the world despise and pity me. They don't get it. They don't understand. And if you try to push this treasure on somebody who doesn't understand, it doesn't work. They can't see it. If you think about, if you read C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia, Do you remember the scene in the last battle where the Dwarf Trumpkin is in the little house? And it's really everybody else. basically sees heaven, he can't see it. To him, he's still in this dark little house, and they're trying to convince him of what's there in there. They're saying, here, Lucy at one point, is it Lucy? No, it's not Lucy, it's Jill. Whoever it was, somebody gathers up flowers, beautiful flowers that smell, and put it up to his nose and say, see, don't you smell the beautiful flowers? And he pushes it away and says, get that straw out of my nose. He's thinking he's in this cattle stall still. He can't see it, and pushing it in his nose just makes him mad. And so it's evidence of grace if you have seen the gospel. It's evidence of grace if God has put it in your heart that you're not satisfied with here. You know there's something more. There's a holy discontent that is a gift of God. Okay, so I just want to wrap it up here then with the last little section I read where Jesus turns to his disciples after all these parables and he says, do you understand these things? And they go, yes, yeah, we get it. They find out later on they didn't get it at all. But I find in this question something profound. Jesus wants you to understand your faith. And I think it's important that we get this because faith, the whole concept of faith is very misunderstood in our culture, I think. Faith is not something irrational. It is not a random leap in the dark. It is not deciding that you're just going to believe something ridiculous that's contrary to evidence and reason. Faith is not passively checking out and just assuming that you're OK because the priest or the preacher or your parents or the Sunday school teacher knows it, and they understand it, and you're just going to kind of ride on what they're doing. They know what you're supposed to believe and they understand it for you. Jesus says, do you understand these things? See, sitting in church once a week as a religious duty is a waste of your time. Unless you put your mind to work and apply the truth to your life, unless your whole person comes, like we have pictured here with these people that are ready to sell everything, unless your heart is drawn, unless your mind is engaged, unless you personally apply that truth to your life, you're wasting your time. Because, you know, Christianity faith is more than intellect, it's more than understanding, and certainly there's a lot that we don't understand. We don't have to understand everything to be saved. It engages the mind. God gave you a mind and he expects you to use it. Real faith engages the mind. And so Jesus says, do you understand these things? He wants us to understand. And secondly, we see that Jesus expects a personal response to his teaching, personal response from you. It's not good enough to just hear it. It's not good enough to just follow along in a crowd of disciples and assume that you're all going into the kingdom together. Salvation is a personal matter. Now, I don't mean by that that it's only a personal matter, but it is personal. You can't enter the kingdom of heaven as someone else's guest or dependent. You've heard the saying, God doesn't have any grandchildren, right? Each person must respond to Jesus for herself. Each soul must recognize and value and make the transaction, obtain that treasure for herself. The kingdom of God grows one soul at a time. And that's why we spread the gospel. It is growing. The church is growing and it will be triumphant. We see a mixed bag right now. We see people who are in the net, so to speak, or growing in the same field, who every once in a while the blinders come off and we're like, oh, what? That's in the church. Yeah, it's in the church. But God knows who are his. And he's sorting. And he's worth everything. And if you see that, then you understand. You understand why somebody would sell everything that they have to get that. So the kingdom of God grows one soul at a time. We each have to make our own interaction. We have to accept the gift that Jesus gives. And when we reach out our hands to accept it, it is so huge. We can't hold on to anything else and hold that too. It's worth everything. Amen, let's pray. Father in heaven, we thank you for giving us what is most precious to you, the gift of your son, Jesus Christ, and everything that is in him, all the riches of wisdom and grace, eternal life, relationship with you, and the certain hope of the world to come. Lord, we don't know the specifics of how that's gonna happen. If it's gonna happen in our lifetime under our watch, or if it's gonna happen at the end of the age when you return, or if you're returning tomorrow, we don't know that, but we know it's coming. We know that the treasure is real, and we experience a part of it right now. continue to open our eyes and direct our gaze to Jesus Lord. So that all these other little treasures, worthless things, plastic spray-painted with glitter that we hold on to that we think are so precious, Lord, would lose their hold on us. And we would live out of the abundance of the priceless treasure that you give us in Christ. Make our witness winsome. Draw others to the light of Christ through the light that shines from us as we look to you. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.