The Seriousness of Faith in Christ

Are you ready for some of the top passwords of 2017? Here we go:

1. 123456
2. password
3. 12345678
4. 12345
5. letmein
6. 1234567
7. football
8. iloveyou

I share these with you just to say we the human race has to better than this. Are our creative capabilities so bad that we can’t do better than this? In 2018, please let’s all be better with our passwords. Matthew 13 we find 7 parables in one chapter. I want to focus on two short parables this morning, and I believe as we move into 2018 they can help frame our thoughts about what it means to follow Christ. What is Jesus teaching us here in these short parables? Let’s read together from Matthew 13:44-46.

Examine Your Treasure:

"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up…" — Matthew 13:44

Every child loves the idea of going on a treasure hunt. Every summer my family goes to the beach and we hunt for sand crabs. The pure excitement that my son, Beckett gets when one of those creatures emerges from the sand is something to watch. Or perhaps you have been missing an important document, or piece of jewelry and you accidentally stumble upon it without even looking for it. It is so satisfying to find something. God wired us to be excited in this way.

There is a process that we see here. First, all we are told here is that the man found the treasure. We don’t really know from this particular parable if he was looking for a treasure or he stumbled upon it. People come to faith in Christ in various ways. Some take a path where they carefully weigh out the risks and benefits, others are looking for peace, and some weren’t looking for Jesus at all and yet God was drawing them to himself.

All we know is that he found the treasure! And it radically changed his life. He covers it up. He doesn’t want anyone to take it from him. This picture shows us that it is of great value to him.

• In his book, Every Good Endeavor, Tim Keller writes about how our professions can become an idol in our life. He defines an idol as, “if I had this it would fix everything, and then my life would have value.” You see, treasures are the exact same way. We know the treasure that Jesus is talking about is salvation, but we all have “other treasures” that make us feel complete, valued, and worthy. All of those treasures are idols.

So this morning examine your treasures. Is it your spouse? Is it a certain food? Is it a certain tv show? Is it a sports team? What other than God himself satisfies you? Here is the deal, you have them. I have them. We all have idols in our lives. Another statement that Tim Keller makes in this books is that everyone is worshipping something. Even the atheist is worshipping something. It’s just not God.

I don’t want you to think that nothing in life can bring you happiness besides God. But I do want you to properly evaluate your priorities and passions.

All earthly pursuits will end in one day. Your profession will come to an end, your relationships with your spouse and your children will end. Martin Luther says that the reason having no other Gods before me is the first commandment is because we never break the other commandments without breaking the first. You have a business deal at work that you know is dishonest. You know that if you complete this deal it would increase your status in the company so you lie. The idol of status is the reason you lied. The idol of a promotion which could lead to more money is the reason you lied. The sin is idolatry expressed through your decision to also sin by lying.           

True Treasure Brings Eternal Joy:

"…Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field." — Matthew 13:44

Once the man finds the true treasure of Jesus, it can’t help but transform his life. Suddenly all material possessions are meaningless for him. He cashes in all that he has and buys the field. It becomes the central focus of his life. It’s the center of his thinking.

When Jesus grabs a hold of your heart he changes the way you view everything. Family, job, your role in government.

• I read an article discussing the poverty level in the state of Alabama. The UN specialist, Philip Alston, assigned to studying this said the following statement: “The idea of human rights is that people have basic dignity and that it’s the role of the government-yes, the government!-to ensure that no one falls below the decent level.”

While I appreciate his comments because after all he works in government; I have to disagree with him. The church of Jesus Christ should be a huge part of fixing poverty. No one is more equipped to address the holistic person than the church. Jesus regularly addressed both physical and spiritual needs in his interactions with people. Don’t ever count on any human organization to fix the problems in this world. Poverty, unemployment, orphans, you name it. The church should have a role in all of those areas of life. Christians should be concerned about ever person having basic dignity not government.

The reason I believe so strongly in this is because those of you in this room that are in government, banking, education, construction, service industry, or anything else you are brining your witness into the workplace. You should view your job through the lens of of how can what I do serve people? How can I be a gospel witness and change agent in my place of employment?

• This coming Wednesday night, we are beginning to a new study called Redeeming work and it will be examining how we can take our faith into the workplace and make a difference. I hope you can join us on Wednesday evenings at 6pm for this study.

Does sharing our faith with others bring us joy? I confess to you that a lot of times sharing our faith brings out fear, anxiety, and dread. We don’t want to transition the conversation to heavy things we say. We just want to keep our conversations on the surface sports, weather, and current events. But when something brings you eternal joy, you have to talk about it. So let’s commit to praying our hearts in 2018 that we the Spirit will give us boldness to share the joy that we have in Christ with others.

True Treasure Radically Transforms You:

"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." — Matthew 13:45-46

I have a picture of a pearl I want to show you. We had our annual Christmas lunch with Franklin Avenue Baptist church a few weeks ago, and one of their staff members actually found a pearl in her clam chowder. I told her I wanted to take a picture so that I could share it with you guys.

• Retail price of a pearl necklace at Jared’s. Or at least one of the more expensive ones I found was $300 for an entire necklace full of pearls. Obviously, a very valuable type of jewelry.

The merchant in this short parable is actively looking for the pearls. He had his heart on this particular treasure and he found it. Here me closely, everyone in this world is worshipping a God. The follower of Jesus, the man or woman who is obsessed with their career, and even the one who denies the existence of God is worshipping that idea as if it were there God. Everyone on this planet is searching for something to give them purpose, value, and motivation. You can find those in a lot of things. People have been doing it for years. But here’s the deal, when you put your purpose, value, and motivation into living for Jesus it lasts your entire lifetime.

The merchant’s life was forever changed upon finding this pearl. Radical transformation. Sold everything that he had and bought it. We gloss over this. Think for a moment about selling everything you have. This is a huge decision, and Jesus doesn’t even begin to say that the man struggled with it. It’s almost as if he was so transformed by what he found that doing anything else besides selling it all would have been foolish.

And that is the point of these two parables. When you find Jesus not giving him your full allegiance really is foolish. Is it difficult? Absolutely. But it’s foolish not to. Jesus wants you All in or out. Jesus is not impressed with you keeping up appearances at church, in your behavior, or anything else. We cannot fool him. Remember what he tells the church at Laodicea in Revelation. You are neither hot nor cold. That’s the absolute worst way to be. So the challenge to all of us in this room is, How much does this matter to you? Do you show up on Sundays you make your parents, spouse, grandparents, or someone else happy? Jesus isn’t interested in that. Do you read the Word of God until it says things you disagree with? Jesus isn’t interested in that. Do you live a moral lifestyle until it begins to interfere with the way you want to live? Jesus isn’t interested in that either.

Thomas Jefferson titled his version of the gospels “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth,” but the work is commonly called the “Jefferson Bible.” You can buy it on Amazon.

After the introduction and preface, the first sentence in the Jefferson Bible is “And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus.” The last sentence in Jefferson’s Bible is “There laid they Jesus: and rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulcher and departed.” Jefferson began his account in Luke 2, skipping the miraculous virgin birth, and ended his account with a closed tomb, eliminating the resurrection. You and I don’t need Jesus’ moral example. We can find hundreds of morally good people throughout history who we could turn to for that. We don’t need his teaching, although I happen to think He is the greatest teacher, there are other good teachers. We need Jesus because of his death on the cross and his resurrection. No one else has done that. That’s what makes him unique. Unless Thomas Jefferson converted to faith in Christ on his deathbed, he died believing that Jesus was only a good teacher and is spending his eternity apart from Christ. What about you? Do you have the treasure of eternal life in Jesus Christ?