Reading Assignment: Matthew 13:44-58
Truth: The kingdom of heaven is precious.
Key verse: Matthew 13:44
Jesus expresses this truth with three illustrations/parables:
1. Hidden treasure
2. Pearl of great value
3. Fish in the dragnet
This is followed by a short story of unbelief among the Nazarenes.
Suggested Prayers:
1. Jesus considered our place in the kingdom precious and gave up everything to redeem us for God’s kingdom.
2. Jesus calls us to give up everything to follow Him, because we perceive the infinite value of the kingdom of heaven.
3. We must be true disciples who truly follow Christ and keep His word.
Transcript
All right, let's pray. Lord, we come to You this morning to connect with You, to hear from You. Thank You that in Jesus Christ we discover what kind of heart You have toward Your people, and we see in Jesus how generous You are, how incredibly kind You are, because Jesus took upon Himself a debt that wasn't His, a debt of sin that we had incurred. He willingly took that debt upon Himself and paid it down with the price of His own blood. And in that act of grace, Jesus reveals to us Your heart, that You have a profound love toward Your people. And so we approach You with great joy in our hearts. And we come to You to know You as our God, even as our Father. We pray that You will continue to teach us and wise us up, so that we would honor You and live our lives fruitfully unto Your glory. Thank You for this time to look at Your word together. Bless us now, we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
The next reading assignment is Matthew 13:44-58. That's the final section from Matthew 13, and the truth to be underscored here is this: the kingdom of heaven is precious. This is the main idea here, generally speaking, except that the final parable also talks about the difference between true disciples and false disciples. Nonetheless, the kingdom of heaven is precious, and that is the main truth that I want to highlight. In terms of the key verse, it’s verse 44, where Jesus says, “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and hid again [I'll explain a little bit why he does that]; and from joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” This verse shows just how precious the kingdom of heaven is. This tremendous value of the kingdom of heaven is illustrated in three ways. First, the hidden treasure. Second, the pearl of great value. And third, the fish in the dragnet. After those three illustrations, Matthew tells the story of a time when Jesus's own townspeople, His people from Nazareth, did not believe in Him. And so we conclude with a sad story of unbelief.
But we begin with the first illustration of the hidden treasure. As I just read a moment ago, the kingdom of heaven is like a hidden treasure. And Jesus tells a short story where a man finds this hidden treasure and he is overjoyed by this discovery. Then he does something kind of odd, at least odd to our ears, though it wouldn't have been very odd to Jesus's own audience in the first century world, but this man sells all he has and acquires the field and thus that treasure. Now, what's the explanation for this action? Well, let me explain. Treasures were often hidden in the ground in the ancient world. And there was a reason for this. The ancients didn’t have many good places to keep their possessions safe from invaders, burglars, or even fire. And so this practice of digging into the ground and hiding jewelry, money, and sometimes even food, was rather common. In Israel, this went on for hundreds of years. This was especially relevant to Israel, because Israel experienced a great deal of invasions throughout her history. And to protect their family’s wealth, the Israelites would often hide treasures in the ground. But as you would imagine, if the practice went on for hundreds of years, there must have been some treasures that were lost and long forgotten. And indeed there were. In fact, one Jewish historian by the name of Josephus said that the land of Israel was filled with hidden treasures in the ground during his time (the first century AD). And again, the reason for this was that hiding treasures was such a common practice for hundreds of years before Jesus's time. Well, given that, if someone did discover a treasure in the ground, that was a true windfall. Now, in order for that person to gain legal possession of that treasure, he would actually have to own the land. And this is the explanation for the story. The man who found this treasure wanted to take possession of it legally. And so what does he do? He liquidates all he had to amass enough money to afford the land and he buys that land. He does this, because the treasure was so valuable. It was worth more than everything he possessed. This highlights the tremendous value of the kingdom of heaven. Now, I'm going to explain the significance of the story in a little bit.
But let me first get to the second illustration, which is the story of the pearl of great value. This is another story that illustrates the great value of the kingdom of heaven. In this story, a merchant finds a very precious pearl. In the ancient world, pearls were highly prized. I mean, they still are today, but maybe more so in the past. This is because oysters were harvested without modern scuba diving gear. To swim 10 to 30 meters into the water was dangerous enough, but they had to do with without scuba gear. Diving for oysters back in the ancient world was dangerous, to say the least. And thus, pearls became all the more precious, because it endangered the diver who obtained them. In any case, this merchant finds a pearl of a great value, a really rare pearl. And like the treasure hunter, in order to acquire this pearl, he needs to sell everything he has to acquire this pearl. You can see the parallel between the two stories. Now, what's the significance of these stories? The meaning can go two ways. First, it could describe the value of the kingdom of heaven which is perceived by true disciples of Jesus. True disciples recognize that the kingdom of heaven is of far greater value than anything else in this life, and so they willingly give up everything —their jobs, their livelihood, their possessions— to cling onto the Savior to take a hold of this kingdom. You find examples of this in Simon Peter, James and John, as well as the author of this book, Matthew. He left his tax collecting business to follow Jesus because he saw in Jesus the promise of the kingdom of heaven, and that was more valuable to him than anything else in life. And this is what true disciples are today. All of us who believe the promises of salvation, we willingly give up everything to follow Jesus Christ. Now, today's call to discipleship isn't to leave your job as if that's how you must follow Jesus Christ today. In most cases, that’s not what Jesus requires, because Jesus is not physically on earth calling people to be with Him 24/7 like the twelve disciples. Perhaps someone may need to leave their occupation to follow Christ because their jobs are morally evil. You know, perhaps they're working in the pornography industry or they're smuggling drugs or engaged in human trafficking. If your daytime job is of a sinful nature, then to embrace Jesus Christ means that you give up your job. But of course, for the vast majority of the population who are law abiding citizens, following Jesus means that we tell Jesus, “Jesus, all that I have and all that I am belongs to You. You came to save me from my sins and I trust in You, and I commit to following You with everything on the table.” Our attitude thenceforth is to hold nothing back from Jesus. And so this value of the King and the kingdom can be seen from the perspective of the follower of Christ. And of course, this is a sound interpretation because it's an idea that is echoed throughout the rest of the Bible. Jesus repeatedly called people to follow Him, counting the cost of losing everything to do so, even their closest family relationships, because that is indeed what it means to place your faith in Jesus Christ. Now, there's a second way to interpret the meaning of this story, which is to see the value not from the disciple’s perspective, but from the Savior’s perspective. This is to say, Jesus paid a great price for the salvation of His people, and it is with a great price of His own life that He secured the kingdom of heaven for His people. Jesus the Savior saw a great value in God's kingdom filled with God's redeemed people. It is for this reason that He gave up everything, the glories of heaven, and He exchanged everything that He owned for the redemption of sinners. This is also a biblical idea that the Bible teaches elsewhere, that Jesus impoverished Himself to redeem His people. We find a verse like this in 2 Corinthians 8:9 where we're told, “Though He [Jesus] was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich.” And so that's the second way to look at the passage. Now, admittedly, the meaning of this passage is ambiguous. And since both meanings are echoed elsewhere in Scripture, they're both valid biblical ideas. But, which interpretation is the right one in this particular passage? Contextually, I believe the second one is the stronger interpretation, because in these kingdom parables, the person who acts is not the person who responds to the Savior, but the Savior Himself. This is to say, in the parable of the Sower, the Sower is the Son of Man, Jesus Christ. And in the parable of the wheat and the tares, the one who sowed good seeds was once again the Son of Man, Jesus Christ. And so contextually, when you consider the other parables in this chapter, it would seem to emphasize the activity of the Savior than that of His disciples. But again, both are biblical ideas, and they're both true, and they both ought to be embraced, because the Bible teaches them both. I believe the proper way to respond to a passage like this is to is to pray to the Lord about both ideas, because they are both biblical and truthful statements from Scripture.
Now, we come to the third story, which is about fish in the dragnet. Jesus tells us this final parable. This story sounds a lot like the parable of wheat and tares in that the fisherman throws his dragnet and drags that net to bring in a catch, but he has in his net both good fish and bad fish. Then we're told that the good fish are kept in a container and the bad ones are thrown away. And Jesus explains what this means for the bad fish to be thrown out. He says that they will be cast into the furnace of fire where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Those are, as we saw previously, keywords that Jesus uses to describe eternal damnation. And so Jesus is saying something very similar to what He said in the parable of the wheat and tares, that there are true disciples who belong to Him and they are precious to Him; then there are false disciples who say they're Christians, but they're not truly interested in following the Lord and trusting in Him with all their heart. Jesus says that these false believers will be no better than unbelievers, for they all end up in the same place. Now, we might ask at this juncture, why does Jesus speak about hell so much? It's because Jesus speaks the truth. There is an eternal damnation for those who refuse Jesus Christ, those who do not trust in Him with all their hearts. It is for this reason that Jesus speaks with such severity. Now why does He speak of hell? Because God is righteous and holy, and those who reject Him and His word, God will justly punish them. And to rebel against the eternal God is an eternal crime that incurs the eternal wrath of that eternal God. And so Jesus speaks of hell to warn everyone to not snub His word but to become a true disciple of His, because there is no way for a false believer to sneak into the kingdom of heaven. And so this final one, on the one hand, does showcase the preciousness of the kingdom as the good fish who are retained, but on the other hand, there is a warning here against becoming a false believer. Jesus’ exhortation to us is this: take Him and His words seriously. Respond to Jesus’ teaching with faith and repentance. To respond to Jesus in any other way is to choose the way of destruction. There is room for repentance for everyone who would heed the words of Jesus and follow Him. This is why He speaks these words, because there's an opportunity to repent and cling onto Christ for salvation and life, and thus Jesus calls everyone to hear His words with dead seriousness and trust in Him as Savior and Lord.
Now, on the heels of that, then, we're also told that Jesus went on from the seashore of the Sea of Galilee and went to His hometown, presumably where He grew up, which would be Nazareth. And we're told that the people there did not believe in Him. They recognized Jesus was performing miracles and that He taught profound lessons about God and the kingdom of heaven, but they did not believe in Him, because they took offense at Him. They saw Him grow up in Nazareth and they didn't think of Him as anything special. As the saying goes, familiarity breeds contempt, and so they rejected Jesus as Messiah. This is so disappointing. Instead of seeing the value of the King and His kingdom, these Nazarenes rejected Jesus. They threw out the treasure and the precious pearl, if you would. They rejected the promise of the kingdom of heaven. They had no taste for it. How terribly sad was their spiritual condition! But Jesus still went there because He wanted to offer them the gift of salvation, if only they would turn to Him with true faith and repentance. But they wouldn’t. What this shows us is that everyone who hears the word of God must recognize the eternal value of Jesus as King and the promise of the kingdom of heaven as precious. And if God would open his eyes to see just how precious are the promises of Christ, then he would humbly respond to Him with a wholehearted trust in Him, with an attitude to turn away from sin, to follow Christ, and to receive the free gift of eternal life.
There are a number of things to pray about here. First, about the preciousness of the kingdom of heaven to Jesus who sacrificed Himself to redeem a people, to fill heaven with them. We can also pray about how much more valuable Christ and His kingdom are than anything else that dares to compete with Him. And finally, we can pray about genuine faith.
And so with that, let me close us in prayer and I'm just going to pray to the Lord from my own heart and not give us a sample prayer. So let's pray and wrap up today.
Lord, thank You that You look upon us with such grace, and You have given up everything to win the kingdom of heaven for us. We should have all died in our sins and lived life with the fear of death and the eternal punishment of sin. But You loved us, You counted us as precious, and You laid down Your own life to save us. How we thank You, and love You, and worship You. What an amazing God You are. Lord, we also see that if we truly trust in You as Savior and Lord, we will see Your kingdom promises as more precious than anything else in this life. And I pray that You will bless everyone here to have a heart like that, and that they would have their spiritual eyes opened to see that Your eternal promises far outweigh any comfort, any pleasure, any illusion of security we may have in this life. We know this life will end for everyone one day, and I pray that You would give to each one here the wonderful joy of salvation by placing their trust in You. And finally, our Lord, we hear Your warning, that we must be true disciples and not false ones. And I pray that You would guard each one here from self-deception, from sly dishonesty before You, but that everyone would have a tender and a soft heart before You. I pray that no one here will prove to be an unbeliever, who falls away from the living God. Thank You, our Lord, for Your precious words to us. Thank You for filling our minds and our hearts with the truth of heaven and for giving such significance to our humble existence on earth. We commit this day to You. Bless us and empower us to serve You and to live by Your word this day. In Your name we pray. Amen.
All right. That is it for today. Lord bless You all, and see you Monday for our next morning devotion. Bye.