THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN: A “MUST” INVESTMENT
Pentecost 10 (ILCW-A) Matthew 13:44-46. 2008
44 “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field. 45 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. 46 When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it. [1]
Many people shop from home today, but people did that long before E-Bay and Amazon.com. They used big books called catalogs, which came from Sears and Penny’s and also from merchandisers named Spiegel and Montgomery Ward.
Those catalogs were impressive. The really big ones had several hundred pages with pictures and descriptions of just about anything you might need or want: clothes, shoes, towels and bathtubs, furnaces and footballs, TVs and tools, boats and radios. From some catalogs you could even order live baby chicks.
Catalogs were sometimes called “wish books”, and my brother and sister and I played a wish-game with them. Imagining that we had lots of money, we randomly opened the catalog and took turns picking what we would buy or invest our money in from things on the two open pages.
Today Jesus opens his Word to the kingdom of heaven and describes it as a great deal and a “must” investment.
1. For all that it is worth to you
A man is working in a field – plowing or digging out a rock or a stump – and turns up buried treasure. That happened in Jesus’ day, because Palestine was often invaded. In one valley alone, “twenty decisive battles were fought through the centuries… The people never felt secure. All their treasures must be moveable” (Devotional Bible, p. 116f).
So people carried some money to cover the cost of food and shelter if they were displaced, but they had also buried many of their treasured possessions, with the idea the treasures could be dug up, sold and help them get reestablished when they came back home. It was a good idea, except that sometimes people didn’t make it back home. So the treasures would stay buried until someone happened on them – like the first man Jesus mentions here.
A second man Jesus calls a merchant – literally, a buyer or wholesaler. He was out looking and scouring the market for top-quality pearls. One day he spies a real beauty, and at that point he and the finder in the field are alike. They recognize that they have come on something of tremendous worth – yes, the end of their working and seeking.
The kingdom of heaven is like that, Jesus says in our verses. Sometimes he also called it the kingdom of God, and one of those times Jesus told people: The kingdom of God is within you (Lk. 17:21). In other words, the kingdom of God is something going on inside us. It’s a power and rule exerted in us by God, an influence that holds sway in our minds and hearts, and it’s a really great thing!
Listen to what God says in the Letter to the Romans: The kingdom of God is…a matter…of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (14:17). Like the farmer and the merchant, let’s examine those words.
Righteousness – a very precious commodity! Righteousness is being right or square with God. Righteousness is the state of being acceptable to God now and on Judgment Day.
Righteousness is an absolute must-have, because even if we think and say and do lots of things that are right, God’s Word says: All our righteous acts are like filthy rags (Is. 64:6). The reason they’re trash? God requires absolute perfection of us, but we don’t have that in us by nature.
The Romans verse also says that the kingdom of God is…a matter…of…peace. There’s another precious commodity, isn’t it? World peace, social peace, continual peace in marriage and the family – great! And peace of mind with God, knowing for certain that you have nothing to fear from him and having the assurance that he has nothing on or against you – priceless! What a gem, but none of us has a basis for it on our own.
Case in point: We all know that Jesus said: Blessed are the peacemakers (Mt. 5:9); but we often help create strife, and then we sometimes avoid making peace with people. We don’t talk to them. We barely return their greetings and handshakes. God has words for that: Sin and wickedness; and twice in Isaiah he says: There is no peace…for the wicked (48:22; 57:21). No peace, because they are guilty before God, and in many places God’s Scripture says: The Lord will not leave the guilty unpunished (Na. 1:3).
No peace and no righteousness add up to no joy. No joy because God says that his punishment of the wicked will cause them to grind their teeth forever in fevered agony. But the verse from Romans says that the kingdom of God is…a matter…of joy, along with righteousness and peace.
The joy comes when we are influenced to hear and led to see that Jesus Christ the Son of God is our Prince of Peace, because he lived a life of peace in our place, and God charged all our hostility and wickedness to Jesus’ account. Joy comes when we see Jesus peacefully dying on a cross for us and God says that through Jesus we become the righteousness of God (2 Cor. 5:21) and have peace with God (Rom. 5:1). The joy is in knowing that with God’s righteousness and peace, heaven is and will be our home
Maybe you just kind of stumbled onto all of that. Or maybe you sensed emptiness in your life and were on a search for peace and joy. So maybe you were reading the writings of great thinkers and philosophers, and in the process you came upon the words of God and his Son in the Bible.
Whether you were a finder or a seeker of those truths, they stand out, because they have tremendous value and benefit to you. The benefits of righteousness, peace, and joy are forever; and they are like nothing else anywhere else now or in the future. With the benefits of the kingdom of heaven, we can die happy, because the benefits include heaven and forever, where other people to whom the kingdom has come are either waiting for us or will be joining us there before long.
So now what? Glory, hallelujah, praise the Lord? Absolutely, because of all that the kingdom of heaven is worth to you; but also invest in the kingdom. Invest
2. With all that you are worth
The finder in the field and the seeker of fine pearls in Jesus’ brief parable did that. Both went, sold everything they had, and bought the treasure-field and the exquisite pearl. And no wonder! The treasure and the pearl were so good and valuable they simply couldn’t pass it up.
When Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like that, he isn’t saying you should liquidate all your earthly financial assets so you can get the kingdom of heaven. All the gold and silver in the world – and you can include all the oil, too – can’t do that.
To understand Jesus, go back to the words that we examined a few minutes ago: The kingdom of God is…a matter…of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (14:17). The last four words give us a clue as to how to invest in the kingdom of God.
In the Holy Spirit means that the righteousness, peace, and joy of the kingdom of heaven are not self-generated or even self-perpetuated. Righteousness, peace and joy come in the Holy Spirit. They come from or through him, and how does the Spirit of God do kingdom of heaven work?
Martin Luther gave an A+ answer to that question when he wrote an explanation to the second petition or request of the Lord’s Prayer: “God’s kingdom comes when our heavenly Father gives his Holy Spirit, so that by his grace we believe his holy Word and lead a godly life now on earth and forever in heaven.” For the kingdom of heaven to come, the Word of God is the thing – in Holy Scripture, in Holy Baptism, in Holy Communion. That’s what Luther was saying and what confessional Lutherans still believe
Do you see now what it means to invest in the kingdom of heaven? Since the kingdom of heaven comes, works, and continues to exert its influence on human hearts and minds by the Word of God, investing in the kingdom means investing all that we are worth in the Word of God.
Someone has said: “Those who recognize God’s kingdom as the ultimate good will judge their other possessions on the basis of their usefulness in supporting and extending Christ’s kingdom” (People’s Bible, p. 204 ). Like the time we have and value so highly – does an hour of it a week in worship constitute a heavy investment in the kingdom of heaven? I’m sure you would agree that it’s really not much of an investment, because that’s less than one-half of one percent of the hours we have each week.
But look! There are other investment opportunities: Bible classes at church, in the park this summer or over breakfast at a restaurant all year round. There is our personal copy of the Bible and daily Bible devotion materials at home or on our congregation’s Web page. Investing time in those would easily increase the rate of your investment in the kingdom and its continuing work in you to over 2%!
Our abilities and money provide ways to invest in the kingdom of heaven, too. Put into play in our congregation and our church body, our talents and dollars keep the word and power of the kingdom coming to us and to our children, and they help the kingdom get to and stay in other people.
Maybe you’ve heard the one about the pastor who announced that he would be visiting member homes to talk to them about using their Bibles more. As he began to talk in one home, one of the parents interrupted and said to a child: “Honey, go and get the book we all love so much.” The child left the room and quickly returned carrying the Sears catalog!
Amusing, that child carrying the “wish book”, but also sad. Here’s a better one – and a true story: A first-time mother told me that before their baby was born, she and her husband bought a children’s language version of the Bible and read out loud from it each night near the mother’s tummy; and they were going to keep doing that reading to their new-born baby. Amusing? No, but very impressive, because those parents were divesting themselves of everything they had and might have to invest in the kingdom of heaven for the benefit of their child and themselves. And that’s not wishful thinking! That’ priceless – priceless treasure! Amen.
[1]The New International Version, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House) 1984.