Today on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. The best water from the well doesn't happen by widening the circumference of the well, but by going deeper into the well.
So you're not going to grow in Christ by learning every possible different outcome in eschatology. You're going to grow in Christ when you grow in the wonder of who God is and what He has done for you in the gospel. And as your soul is overwhelmed by that, then you will spring alive with spiritual fruit. It is simple, yet it contains the power of God. Welcome back to Summit Life with JD Greer.
As always, I'm your host, Molly Vidovich. You know, Jesus once told a story about two men. Both of them come across something so valuable that it makes everything else in their lives seem worthless.
So, what should they do with this discovery? Today, Pastor JD looks at the responses of these two men as he continues our teaching series on Jesus' parables titled Listen. And don't forget, you can reach out to us at jdgreer.com or give us a call at 866-335-5220 anytime. But for now, let's join Pastor J.D. Greer in Matthew chapter 13 as he begins this new message titled Hidden Treasure.
If you got a Bible this morning, I'd love for you to take it out and open it to the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 13. And we're going to look at another parable Jesus told in that chapter of the Bible. As you're turning there to Matthew 13, I'm going to tell you that when I was a little kid, like four or five years old, one of my favorite TV shows was called Rescue 911. Anyone remember this thing? Rescue 911 was a show about firemen.
And as with many young boys that age, firemen quickly became my heroes. I thought it was so cool when the alarm went off and they would jump on the pole and slide down the pole and they would jump into their fire boots that were attached to their fire pants and they would jump in once and pull them up. And just in a matter of seconds, they would be dressed and in the truck and out the door.
Well, the show made it seem like fires happened all the time.
So I wanted to be ready if one happened to our house. And so beside my bed, I tucked my jeans into my boots that I had so that I could just jump in and pull them up really quickly like they did. I even asked my parents if they would put a pole beside our back deck so I could slide down it in case of a fire. They never did, which was Probably wise on their part. But maybe most importantly, I arranged all my favorite possessions on my bedside table so that in case of fire, I could grab what was important to me and be out the door and not leave anything behind.
I can still remember as a five-year-old trying to think through what should go on that coveted bedside table slot. And while things changed from week to week, one of the consistent items that was there was a set of three or four of my favorite records. Yes, I know that some of you, this is surprising, but I am that old. I know that some of you think that I'm in my mid-20s, but it is true. It is true.
I am indeed in my early 30s.
Well, one of my Favoritist of all my records was my read-along Davy Crockett book. My mom had told me as a boy that our family's heritage on her side went back to he was our great Davy Crockett was our great-great-great great uncle, which I thought was pretty amazing. I kept that record there right along with some of my other favorite stuff so that if the house burned down, I could be out the door with that stuff and at least preserve the family lineage.
Well, over the years, what I would keep there on my bedside table, metaphorically speaking, has changed, but I still think it's a good mental exercise to go through to think through what you would hold on to if you had to walk away from everything else. And just for the record, my Davey Crockett records are still on that list for me. They now sit proudly next to my complete box set of all 89 of Nicholas Cage's masterful films. The point is: this: the value that you place on something is shown by what you'll give up for it, right? That's kind of obvious.
The value that you place on something is demonstrated, not by how excited you are about it, but by what you'll give up, what you'll leave behind. In order to hold on to it, well, I share that because when Jesus talked about finding the kingdom in Matthew 13, he used ideas and terms like these. He taught us that finding the kingdom was like discovering something of such incredible value that you would gladly walk away from everything else in your life in order to obtain it. He taught that through the two shortest parables that he ever told. And they're in Matthew 13:44 through 46.
We're just going to walk through them. Here's the first parable: the kingdom of heaven. Jesus said, it's like a treasure that was buried in a field that a man found and reburied. Then in his joy, he goes and sells everything he has and buys that field. Again, second parable.
The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls when he found one priceless, or some of your translations say one very precious pearl, and he went and sold everything he had and bought it. Two very similar stories that make the same point. In the first story, a man stumbles onto a treasure randomly. We don't know exactly what he was doing in that field that he was in. He did not own the field.
Maybe he had been hired to plow it, or maybe he was taking a shortcut home. We just don't know. But the point is, while he is there, he uncovers, he stumbles onto a priceless treasure. By the way, who has not dreamed of having something like this happen to them? I used to think the guys with the metal detectors that would walk up and down the beach were a little nerdy.
And I still think that for the record. But recently, I read about Terry Herbert, a guy in Great Britain, who, using his metal detector, Discovered more than $5 million of gold and silver objects that dated back to the 7th century AD, discovered them in his neighbor's backyard. And by the way, after watching National Treasure, I am constantly tapping on old loose bricks in old churches or try to find coded messages and stained glass windows. Currently, I'm not allowed in Duke Chapel for just that reason right there.
Well, see, in Jesus' day, finding treasures like this was not all that uncommon. You see, back then, they didn't really have banks per se.
So if you had a huge pile of money and you wanted to keep it safe, you would bury it. And if your town was being attacked, if your town was being attacked and you didn't want the invading army to walk away with all your money, then quite often you go find a place and you would bury all your possessions really quickly so they couldn't confiscate it. But then a lot of times the person who buried the treasure would die in the attack, and so nobody would know where that treasure was. In fact, in one of the archaeological digs at Qumran, they found a map with 64 different places that people in that community had buried treasure to keep it from being discovered. Discovered by invading armies.
So the point is, many people in Jesus' day live with the excitement of the possibility of stumbling onto some old buried treasure.
So that when Jesus tells this story, they're all really interested. They're like, they kind of start leaning in, like, ooh, this could happen to me, maybe.
Well, I will say that this story. While it is interesting, there does seem to be somewhat of a small ethical dilemma in it. The ethical dilemma is this. Is the guy who found the treasure morally obligated to tell the person who owns the field that he discovered it in? I think that's a fascinating question, but Jesus skips right over it.
In fact, the guy in Jesus' story acts more than a little shady. It says that he reburied the treasure. In other words, he put it back in, covered it back up so nobody would know about it. Doesn't tell anybody. And he straight away goes to the owner's house and says, hey, how much do you want for that worthless piece of dirt out there?
And the guy said, well, why would you want that piece of land? And the man just evidently just makes something up. He's like, I don't know. I want to build a mini golf on it. Or I just bought a flucky axe and they need somewhere to graze.
Or I heard a voice that said, if you build it, they will come or something like that. And so they finally agree on a price. And evidently, it's a pretty steep price because in order to purchase this field, the man has to sell everything else he has just to get the money to buy this field. And then come the most important three words in the whole parable. In his joy, he gets rid of everything else to purchase the field.
You see, normally, if you had to walk away from everything you owned, you would be devastated. Yet this man is elated with joy because the treasure he is gaining has far more value in his eyes. Than the value of what he is walking away from.
So his sorrow over what he is losing is eclipsed by the joy in what he is gaining. This, Jesus says, is like discovering the kingdom of God. The second parable, Jesus tells, makes the exact same point, just with a few small distinctions. This time, the one who discovers the treasure, which is a pearl of great price, is not a blue-collar worker, it's a very wealthy merchant. And unlike the first guy, this guy doesn't discover the treasure accidentally.
He's made a lifetime out of hunting treasures. Pearls, by the way, were the most valuable jewel in the ancient world, mainly because they were so hard to get. They didn't have all the diving equipment that we have today.
So, in order to get one, you had to plunge into a fairly shallow thing and be able to find some pearl that's down there. It was just much more difficult than it is today, and they were very hard to come by.
So, only the wealthiest of the wealthy had pearls. It was said that the majority of Cleopatra's worth, for example, was contained. The majority of her wealth was contained. Contained in two pearls that are valued in today's terms at over $4 billion.
Well, see, this merchant has made a living of buying and selling pearls, but this one that he discovers is of such exquisite beauty that he sells all of his other ones and all of his possessions and all of his businesses and all of his houses and all of his lands and liquidates all of his investments in order to purchase this one pearl. Two men, one blue-collar, one white-collar. One with relatively little, the other with quite a lot. One who was not looking for treasure, the other who was obsessed with it. One who was poor and common, the other rich and educated, yet both of them encountering something of such priceless value that it makes everything else in their lives look worthless by comparison.
This, Jesus said, this is like discovering the kingdom of God. And I would tell you that these two very short and small parables teach us three massive things about the kingdom of God. Here's number one. By the way, I'll use the word gospel interchangeably for kingdom of God today, okay? Number one, they show us that the gospel, the kingdom of God, is hidden.
This is a common theme throughout the book of Matthew. It's a theme that we saw last week, and it's reinforced right here again in these two parables. The gospel, the kingdom of God, is hidden. And because it is hidden, most people miss it. The Bible is going to explain this to us in a number of different ways.
If you're taking notes, here's the first way. Letter A, the glory of Jesus. The glory of Jesus was hidden in a very ordinary, earthly body. Isaiah 53 tells us that there was no comeliness in the Messiah that we should desire him. In other words, he was not physically impressive.
He didn't look like you would think the divine Son of God would look. I mean, it's a mystery, right? The Son of God, who designed the oceans and the stars, and the nucleus of the atom and the human brain, was born into the world through the messy process of childbirth and grew up among the poorest of the poor. He wore ordinary clothes. He ate ordinary food and his feet and his back got sore after standing all day, just like the rest of us.
He never led an army. He never won an award. He never won an election. And for that reason, I think that's a good idea. But see, that obscurity was intentional because God doesn't want people who only want to use Him to gain power.
He wants people who love him for him, who love what he loves, and who wouldn't just try to use him to get power and beauty for themselves. You see, had Jesus come in power and physical beauty, he would have attracted people to himself who only wanted to use him to get those things for themselves.
So God hid his power in a very ordinary, earthly disguise so that only those who were poor of spirit and pure in heart and only those who desired to know God for the right reason. reasons could perceive him. It reminded me of that scene that I love so much at the end of Indiana Jones's Last Crusade. The last scene of that movie, they're trying to pick out which cup is the actual grail. And so one of the guys that's with Indiana Jones, who's a treasure seeker, he's very self-centered and he wants it for himself.
He and his partner pick out the cup they think is the real holy grail and he picks out a golden cup that's studded with diamonds and he holds it up and says, this would be the cup of the king of kings. He dips it in the water and he drinks it, but instead of giving him life, it makes him age 100 years in just an instant. And then he shrivels up and he turns into dust and he blows away. And the old knight Templar says, He chose. Right, remember that scene?
It's a great scene.
Well, then Indiana Jones, you know, ever the Eriudite theologian, who is not seeking treasure, but being a man that is pure of heart, he is trying to find healing for his dad who has been shot. He just loves his dad and wants to get the healing to him. He looks through all the cups and he picks up this very plain-looking cup and he says, This, this would be the cup of a carpenter. And he dips it in the water and he drinks it. And remember, the old, old, the old knight says, you have chosen wisely, wisely, right?
Now, I wouldn't normally say that Indiana Jones movies are a great place to learn theology, but that's not very, that's not bad. God hides his power and his glory in a plain-looking package. Oh. You are listening to Summit Live with Pastor JD Greer. To learn more about this ministry, including how to partner with us financially, visit jdgreer.com.
Did you know that Summit Life is featured on radio stations all over the country as well as on our website reaching around the world? We love hearing from friends like you. We recently heard this from one of you. My husband and I consider JD a close friend, one who pops in for about 20-ish minutes each day to not talk about the weather or the latest scandal or news headline, but to consider our hearts and their state and encourage them to look more like Jesus. I have learned that these are the best kinds of friends to have.
I have walked away from our 20 minutes challenged, heartbroken, inspired, loved, and seen. Wow, sounds pretty transformational, doesn't it? And that's just one example of the impact of the gospel message that we try to steward here at Summit Life. If you too have been inspired and challenged by this program, please consider helping someone else hear these teachings by giving a generous gift to the ministry right now. Call us at 866-335-5220 or visit jdgreer.com.
Thanks for your faithfulness.
Now let's return to our teaching. Once again, here's Pastor JD. Letter B: The power of the gospel is hidden in its simplicity. The power of the gospel is hidden in its simplicity. The gospel message is just not that impressive on the surface.
It comes to us in the form of a preached word that you can set aside, you can ignore, you can argue with. You can get up in the middle of me talking about it and go to the bathroom. You can doze off. Yet, in these simple words, are the power of new life. Last week we saw how Jesus compared it to an acorn, an acorn that you could crush beneath your feet.
Yet within that acorn is the potential for a mighty tree whose roots could reach to the heaven, whose branches could reach to the heaven and whose roots could split concrete. In the same way, Jesus said, this word, this word that is put in the mouths of ordinary people and is contained in simple stories and parables and easy enough for a child to understand contains within it the ability to free the believing soul from the penalty and the power of sin to bring life back from the dead and infuse divine life into the hearer if it is received by faith. Which, if I could just digress for only a minute, is why I take this moment of preaching so seriously, right? It is why we don't have, we have preachers up here, we don't have speakers. We don't give talks.
We proclaim God's words. Talks might entertain or enlighten you, but I know that the word of God, accurately preached, can save your soul. Paul, in fact, would compare this act of preaching right here to when Jesus would say to a lame person, Be healed. And those simple words, those reverberations traveling through the air, are the power that could make the lame walk and make the blind see if the hearer would receive them by faith. I know that when I'm standing up here delivering to you the promises of God, I know that if you believe them, it'll do more than just give you a new perspective.
It'll do more than lighten your load and make you feel good. It can impart to you the very power of God, which is why, by the way, I take preparation for the message so seriously. I spend the greater part of my week, every week, studying for 38 minutes on the weekend. Why? Because I want to know what God says so that I can say it to you accurately.
I know that I can do a lot of things poorly here at the church, and I probably do, but I know that the most important thing that I'm going to do is stand up in front of you and open up the word of God and tell you what it says. And I can tell you that not one time in the 16 years that I've been here, not one time have I ever stood up here and felt uncomfortable. unprepared to be opening the word of God. Underqualified, yes. Unworthy, absolutely.
Underprepared, no. And I do not say that to you so that you will congratulate me. I say that because I want you to know how seriously I take this moment. It is everything. It's why, when I stand up here, I try hard not to spend most of my time sharing with you my opinions about life and culture.
This is not good advice time from Uncle J.D. I'm not a life coach. I am a preacher of God's words. I don't dispense good advice, I proclaim good news. In fact, the Apostle Paul says that what I do is rather simple.
On the surface, it's rather foolish, is the word he used. It doesn't take a lot of skill. I mean, basically, I just read God's words to you and I try to tell you what I think they mean, and then I yell at you for the remainder of the time. That's my job. And so, I study all week long, I study all week long for this moment, and then backstage, I do three things right before I walk out here.
I pray and ask God to anoint what I'm saying with power. I check my mic and I check my zipper because I don't want you to get distracted, which is like a metaphor for my whole job right there, okay? Prepare hard and try not to embarrass the gospel. The power of the gospel is hidden in its simplicity. It is so simple, Jesus said, that a child can get their mind around it and understand it.
It is so profound, the Apostle Peter says, so profound that the angels long to look into it. Answer me this. Is there any other thing that you can think of that is so simple that a five or six-year-old child can understand it and explain it, yet so profound and amazing that it still baffles the angels? I mean, think about what angels have seen. I mean, they had a front-row seat to creation.
They've seen God split the Red Sea and take Israel, throw it on dry land, and then destroy the Egyptian army that was behind them. They've seen God put words. In the mouth of a donkey, as he rebuked Balaam for walking away from God. Yet these angels who have seen all these amazing things, according to the Apostle Peter, can't get enough of the gospel. And when they want to go deep, but they want their minds blown, they sit around and they talk about the gospel.
So don't tell me you're bored with it or you're past it. That it was something that you used to bring you to salvation, but now you want to learn a bunch of additional stuff. It's why we say that growth in Christ doesn't happen by going beyond the gospel. Real growth in Christ happens by going deeper into the gospel. The best water from the well doesn't happen by widening the circumference of the well, but by going deeper into the well.
So you're not going to grow in Christ by learning every possible different outcome in eschatology, or the difference in the first and eras tense in the Greek language, or how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, or the difference in supralapsarianism or infra-lapsarianism or however you pronounce those words. You're going to grow in Christ when you grow in the wonder of who God is and what He has done for you in the gospel. And as your soul is overwhelmed by that, then you will spring alive with spiritual fruit. It is simple, yet it contains the power of God. All right, letter C.
The beauty of the gospel is hidden in ordinary believers. The beauty of the gospel is hidden in ordinary believers. Instruments of gospel proclamation are ordinary people. Honestly, I sometimes find myself wishing that God saved more impressive people, more athletes, more movie stars, more brilliant intellects. And we can certainly pray that that happens, but I'm just going to tell you, it's not God's way.
I mean, you think about Paul's statement that he made in 1 Corinthians. Not many of you. Were wise according to worldly standards. Not many were powerful. Not many were of noble birth.
No, God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, so that no human being might boast in his presence. Y'all look around this morning. Look around.
Look at the people around you.
Okay? In fact, look at your neighbor and say, you are low and despised. You are low and despised. That's why God chose you because you were weak and you were foolish and you were small. See, God did not want to put on display physical impressiveness.
He wanted the glory to belong to him.
So he chose ordinary things, broken things, non-impressive things to be the vehicles that carry his glory. Please do not be fooled by the plainness of the package. That is something our enemy uses to keep your mind away from the truth that is really in God's word. C.S. Lewis in his book, Screwtape Letters, which is a collection of letters from a senior demon to a junior demon, trying to explain how to the junior demon to keep this subject that he's been assigned to confused.
And at some point in the book, his subject starts to go to church, and the junior demon's like, what do I do? And the senior demon says, easy. Just have him. Focus on the ridiculousness of all the people around him in the church. Help him notice, you know, how they're singing out of tune and how out of style their clothes are, and getting distracted with those things because he'll think, well, these people are ridiculous.
It must be that the gospel they believe is ridiculous too. I would dare say that that's happening to some of you right now. I mean, you're trying to listen to me, but you cannot get over the weird haircut of the guy three rows in front of you. You're listening to me right now. You're like, well, he's not that impressive.
He doesn't even sound that smart. But I'm telling you, that's just how God does things. God does not want you to be attracted to our beauty, but to His.
So He puts His glory and His truth in broken instruments to see if you're more interested in divine truth or you're more attracted by physical impressiveness.
So that's the first thing that we see from this parable: is that the gospel is hidden, hidden so that most people, most people who are only in search of superficial beauty, Most people miss it. Here's the second thing we learned from this parable. We learn that the gospel woos us. With a greater joy. I told you that the three words, in his joy, might be the most important words in these two parables.
I explained to you that normally, if you told a man he'd be losing everything that he owned, he'd be devastated. Yet this man is filled with joy because the value of what he is gaining So eclipses the value of what he's walking away from. Is this the metaphor that you would use? to describe your discovery of the kingdom of God. Many of you, if you were honest, you might choose a different image, a different analogy.
Maybe you would say, well, discovering the kingdom of God was like encountering a never-ending to-do list. Or you might say, discovering the kingdom of God is like being tied to a ball and chain. You gotta wear it, though, if you don't wanna go to hell. And that just shows us how little we understand who Jesus is. and how little we understand what he's offering to us.
You know, God isn't upset with you because you want to be happy. He wants you to be happy in him. He's the only one who can truly bring that level of joy and satisfaction. You are listening to Summit Life with J.D. Greer.
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The number again is 866-335-5220 or go online to give at jdgreer.com. That's jdgrer.com. While you're on the website, don't forget to sign up for our weekly newsletter. Get ministry updates, information about new resources, and Pastor JD's latest blog post delivered straight to your inbox. It's a great way to stay connected with Summit Life.
Sign up when you go to jdcreer.com. I'm Molly Vitovich, inviting you to join us Thursday as we learn more about this hidden treasure. Right here on Summit Life with JD Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.
