You may not know this, but I am
something of an expert at the stock market.
I am an expert trader in the same way that people without children are
expert parents. Until you have children
of your own, you have all the answers.
You are an expert.
But if I did and I saw the perfect
stock, one very much undervalued and ready to launch, how much would I
invest? Would I put 10% of my liquid
assets. How about 50%. Would I be so bold as to take all the cash
that I had on hand and in the bank and just go for it?
Modern investment gurus preach
boldness, but never committing everything to one particular purchase. Every investment is tempered with the fact
that there really is no such thing as a sure thing.
But what if there was?
Would I take everything that I had,
sell my vehicles and home, and liquidate everything that I could to buy
it? Would that be signing my own
admission form to the insane asylum?
Who would do that?
Jesus had been explaining the Kingdom
of Heaven in terms of things that the people knew. A small seed that grew into a big plant told
them and us that God’s kingdom was meant to grow. Yeast working its way through an entire batch
of dough helps us understand that God’s kingdom is permeating our entire being.
Jesus is explaining something that only
he could explain. The teachers of the
law had never seen God’s kingdom and could not describe it. Jesus knew it well but was talking to people
who understood things in terms of the world that they had known since birth.
Jesus explained the Kingdom of Heaven
with many analogies. These two parables
speak to the unbelievable value of what God has in store for us when we profess
Christ and choose to follow him. They
also speak of what we would give up for what is in store for us.
There are more parables that speak to
the kingdom, but for now we have analogies to hidden, perhaps buried treasure
and the finest of pearls.
The first of these two short analogies
speaks to the kingdom being like the treasure itself. The Kingdom of Heaven is being compared to a
thing—a thing of incredible value but a thing nonetheless.
The second compares the kingdom to the
merchant who is looking for a good deal on fine jewelry and finds it. In both cases, the people involved act to
procure these treasures regardless of whether they are buried or in plain
sight.
It’s a good thing that I am reading
this parable 2000 years later and not sitting in the original audience. It’s not really clear if these parables are
being told only to the few disciples or if Jesus has ventured outside again and
has a crowd, but it’s a good thing that I wasn’t there. I might have been chewed out by Jesus. Why?
I would have interrupted with
questions. Why is this guy out wandering
in someone else’s field? Did he have a
treasure map? How do you just come upon
a hidden treasure?
Was there a market for this fine
pearl? If you are going to sell
everything that you have to buy it, what do you do until it sells? I hope that you have some good buddies that
will carry you for a while.
Part of the beauty of these parables
is that in both, the person who made the discovery did extreme things to get
what they had found.
Jesus used extreme exaggeration in his
teaching. Today, we would call it
hyperbole. If your eye offends you, pluck it out. Cut off your hand if it is keeping you from
entering the kingdom. Jesus didn’t want
a bunch of blind amputees. He was
emphasizing how important it was to come to know life in him.
Jesus is describing a kingdom that
people would give everything they had to be a part of—a impractical approach to
investing. If this doesn’t work out, I’m
busted. I’m broke. I’m the laughing stock of the town. I’m not very good at begging.
What could be so valuable to risk everything
we have to obtain it? Jesus said that
his Father’s kingdom is such a thing. The
Kingdom of Heaven was such a thing. We
think of heaven as being something beyond our belief and beyond this earthly
realm; but we should remember that Jesus is describing a kingdom that people
can enter now.
The parable of the treasure found in
the field was probably a spinoff of other stories that people knew with other
outcomes. A worker or servant might find
a treasure in a field. Banks and safe
deposit boxes were not the common practice.
Hiding one’s treasure may have been more common.
If a landowner died before retrieving
his treasure, it would lie undiscovered when the land went to the next
owner. So when the worker discovered it,
it truly was a discovery. His earthly
master told him to plow where the old owner never plowed and so he came across
this treasure. He would hide the
treasure once again, get as much money as he could by hook or crook and buy the
field and be the legitimate owner of the treasure as well.
The secular stories along these lines
surely embraced insider trading principles and most always ended up with the
person who acquired the instant wealth squandering it quickly.
These secular
stories might have been along the lines of Aesop’s Fables with some sort of
moral at the end; perhaps one along the lines of easy come, easy go.
It is not like Jesus is telling a
story that’s really out there; it’s just that the point of the parable as Jesus
told it was what would someone give for
something so valuable. We don’t know
what happened to the man who bought the field as this is not the essence of the
parable.
So we return from the parable to the
present day and find that the question to us is: What are we willing to give up to have the
Kingdom of Heaven right now?
Don’t think that we have had a
doctrinal shift to where you can buy salvation. We will not be singing She’s buying a Stairway to Heaven as our closing hymn. Tom will not be selling indulgences in the
fellowship hall to help raise money for church camp.
Salvation is a gift but what would we
give to fully live in God’s kingdom now?
We sing I Surrender All but do
we really mean it?
Do you recall the account of the rich
young ruler? It appears in Matthew’s gospel as well as Mark’s. I actually like the one in Mark’s gospel
better as before Jesus tells the man to sell all of his stuff and give the
proceeds to the poor, the text reads:
Jesus looked at him and loved him.
Jesus would not withhold the truth
from this man. As much as this young
man—who had a pretty solid GPA with most of the commandments—as much as he
wanted affirmation, Jesus knew he needed to choose between this earthly kingdom
and his Father’s kingdom. Only the
latter held life, life abundant, and life eternal.
The young man went away sad because he
was heavily invested in this world.
Jesus offered something of immensely greater value but this young man
did not grasp what was at stake and so he went away sad. Paul Harvey did not come on the scene until
2000 years later, so we don’t have the rest
of the story as far as this young man goes.
Consider what we are talking about
here. Salvation is free. It costs us nothing but the Kingdom of Heaven
comes with a cost. To say what we sing, I have decided to follow Jesus, comes
with a cost. Discipleship comes with a
cost.
Most of us will not be asked to sell
everything that we own. All of us are
called to give up our citizenship in the world.
We are citizens of God’s Kingdom.
We reside here on earth but our citizenship in in God’s kingdom.
One day, we will live fully in that
kingdom and be surrounded by the glory of God in every moment. The lion and the
lamb will nestle up together like a couple of puppies and there won’t be any
light switches on the wall because God’s light will illuminate everything.
Eye has not seen and ear has not heard
what the Lord has in store for those who love him. We will know what he has in store for us at
some point in our future but we are called to give up our roots in this world
now.
We don’t have to purchase the Kingdom
of Heaven but we do have to go all in to live in it now. We have been here before. We can be a tourist or we can be a disciple
in the Kingdom of Heaven while we live in these bodies of flesh and blood.
This kingdom that Jesus is framing
with parables is one of disciples. If
you are following Jesus entering the kingdom that he has described will be the
deal of a lifetime. Think to the account
of James and John wanting to sit at the right and left of Jesus in his kingdom. Perhaps their mother
wanted this more for them than they did.
Jesus asked them if they could drink
the cup and undergo the baptism that he would.
Would they give up their lives for him?
Would they give up their lives to gain them?
Both said yes to those questions.
If you recall, Jesus gave these two
glimpse of their immediate future. He
said you will indeed drink the cup of bitter suffering that I must endure. You will endure the baptism of suffering that
I have been given.
They did not fully understand what
they were saying or what was ahead of them, but their hearts desired to be with
their Master and be in his kingdom. It
was worth it!
The most valuable thing that they
could think of was being closer to their Master. They had very much given up their stake in the
world to follow him.
I would think that Peter, James, and
John had thoughts of more boats and nets and bigger business somewhere on their
horizon. I would think that Levi—Matthew
if you will—had a decent individual retirement account started with other
people’s money.
These disciples left their lives and
surely their comfort zones to follow Jesus.
While Jesus does not use these words in these parables; they are surely
in the realm of the last will be first
and the first will be last paradigm with which he confounded so many who
had a big investment in this worldly kingdom.
So we ask ourselves:
· Where is our citizenship?
· Where is our loyalty?
· Where is our love?
· Where is our treasure? For where our treasure is, there will our
heart be also.
How much do we want to live in God’s
kingdom now? Are we willing to be the
servant of all in this life? Will we
truly put God first in all things? Will
we regard others more highly than ourselves?
Can we be humble or do we seek to exalt
ourselves?
Jesus is not saying that we must be
poor, but we must regard everything that we have in this world’s kingdom as
temporary. His kingdom is eternal.
All of our money and wealth and things
and investments in this world will stay here when we leave. If we are wise and have lived a godly life,
many of those assets will go to our children and their children as the proverb
counsels.
But our treasure and true rewards are
in the Kingdom of Heaven. The question
for us is do we want to be the first in this world and the last in God’s
kingdom?
Perhaps the other way around is the
ultimate wise investment.
Jesus proffered, what can a man give
in exchange for his soul? What good is it to gain the whole world but
lose your soul?
I can think of no better time to
examine ourselves than now. Lent is
underway. We should desire to turn away
from the world and follow only Jesus, so let’s ask ourselves a question. I will make it a multiple-choice question.
Are we:
A) Citizens of the world
B) Sitting on the fence undecided
C) Playing the hokey-pokey putting one foot in
the kingdom then taking it out
D) “All in” with the
Kingdom of Heaven.
If it is not “All in” then what are we
going to do about it? What in this world
could hold such value to us? What in
this secular kingdom reigns over us? Why
would we not go “all in” on the Kingdom of Heaven?
There are many, many Christians getting
splinters in their behinds sitting on the fence and many more singing the
hokey-pokey ad nauseum. It is time to go
“all in!”
We can only serve one master. Are we wise enough to serve our Lord and
Savior fully now? Are we savvy enough to
live in his kingdom now?
Here is the crazy thing about going “all
in.” If we seek God’s kingdom and his
righteousness first—that means before anything and everything else—then he
gives us all of the good things in the world that those who do not know God
have made into their gods.
Sell whatever you have to, but buy the
field.
Liquidate your assets and buy the
pearl.
Know that everything we have in this
world is temporary but living in God’s kingdom is forever and worth living
there now.
We will be with God forever because of
the blood of Jesus. That’s a gift like
no other gift in all history, but we can choose to live in his kingdom now. We can enter the Kingdom of Heaven now.
In the many things that somehow end up
on my desk, mainly because other people have held on to them for years and
don’t know what to do with them, was one hand written note on a little piece of
paper from the Loftiss—Hackney—Lee Funeral Home in Cordell, Oklahoma. I think it was from 1986.
It was about a preacher who was
talking about heaven and how great it will be.
The preacher was getting all worked up about how fantastic heaven would
be and so he asked: Who wants to go to heaven?
Every hand shot up right away except
for one young boy. After the service, the
preacher asked him why he didn’t raise his hand.
The boy replied that the preacher had
been so excited about heaven that he thought that he was getting up a load to
go tonight.
There is the heaven that we all
envision as the place we will dwell one day and there is the Kingdom of Heaven
that is ready to receive us this day. It
is a kingdom of discipleship.
It is a place where we pick up our
crosses each and every day and follow Jesus.
It is a place where we have taken the
yoke of our Master and learn from him.
It is a place where we give up our
very lives so that we can truly live.
It is a place called discipleship and
it is worth the price.
It is the Kingdom of Heaven and we can
enter now. I think the transition to the
kingdom that awaits us will be nearly seamless for those who have gone “all in.”
Live in the Kingdom of Heaven
today. It is to grow inside of you and
break out all around you and it is worth the price of admission.
Amen!
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