As I sit here tidying up my thoughts for a sermon this morning I find myself reflecting on the complex simplicities of the message I am preaching. The treasure discovered in a field and the pearl of great price in Matthew 13 have two common denominators: #1 – The exceedingly great value of that which was discovered, and #2 – The radical response of the discoverer to obtain that which was discovered.
The message is simple. The application is complex. The challenge in preaching this one for me is not in highlighting the value of life in the kingdom, but in the radical response required to experience life in the kingdom. The treasure and the pearl are not enjoyed unless the discoverer liquidates all he has to purchase them. What have you and I liquidated to enjoy life in the kingdom? I’ve always softened the application of passages like these by saying that what God requires of me is to be in a state of readiness to give up my assets and, so far…he hasn’t asked me to give those up so I continue to enjoy life’s amenities. I don’t have any trouble sleeping at night beneath that philosophy either.
When I think about that application, I feel somewhat inept to the task of preaching on such radical discipleship. Yet I also believe that if we reduce the application to the liquidation of material assets to purchase these treasures then we are missing the major point of the text. First of all, life in the kingdom cannot be purchased. These parables are not suggesting that it can; they are making the point that life in the kingdom is worth more than the sum of everything we have and it should be pursued with complete disregard to what it will cost us…for what it costs us does not compare with the riches that will be obtained by our entrance into Kingdom Life. Secondly, if I judge my own discipleship in terms of the giving up of material wealth, then I am missing out on the best parts of my story…attributing little to no value to the trajectory of my life. Let me explain.
I can’t stand before the diverse audience this morning and talk about the stuff I’ve given up. There are folks in my audience who find themselves living on the streets, who are strung out on drugs, have no jobs, who don’t have a penny to their name. I’m sure some of them might be inclined to look at me like Satan looked at Job: he only serves God because God has blessed him so much (though I am by no means the wealthiest among our group!). So how do I connect the message of these stories to those with and without in this life? The chief principle must be that we become a people who allow NOTHING to get between us and life in the Kingdom! With that in mind I may not be one who can describe himself as having sold all my possessions in order to follow Jesus, but I can say with certitude that the trajectory of my spiritual journey is one in which I have let nothing keep me from following Jesus (not that my life is without stumbles…but the trajectory is towards Jesus). If this were not the path I was on, I would probably find myself in very difference circumstances this morning. I would not be preaching. I would not be living in California. Would not know the love of a godly woman or my two beautiful girls. If I had chose to live for myself in this life, I would have played baseball for a state college in Ohio after high school and who knows how my story would have unfolded from there. But somewhere in my childhood and in my formative teenage years…I discovered a Pearl of Great Price…a Treasure of exceedingly great value…and my life has never been the same since.
O Grace Beyond Compare…that I had eyes to see what so many others fail to grasp!
1 Comment
October 15, 2009 at 11:11 pm
You have chosen the better part…and it will not be taken away from you. This is the beauty, isn’t it, of what God gives us. There is no earthly gift…that cannot be taken from us. There is no earthly relationship, as unbelievably dear as it may be, that can meet the deepest needs of the soul. And, God forbid, the truth is that love doesn’t always win and relationships can be broken forever. But what God is to us…what He will be to us…what He shows us…what He teaches us through all our life’s journey…what He accomplishes through us…is forever. He must be our all-in-all. I could not love my beloved as well as I do (though they may judge my efforts to be paltry), if the priority relationship of my life wasn’t my God and me.
I was blessed by the reading of what you shared here, son. “You are my beloved son…in whom I am well pleased.”