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The Incomparable Worth of the Hidden King (Matthew 13:44) · Reformed Thinking

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  Hello and welcome to another edition of Reformed Thinking.
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  I'm really glad you could get us today.
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  It's great to be here. We have something, I think it's
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  pretty special lined up. We're going to do something that
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  sounds maybe a little simple on the surface, but when you
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  actually start looking at it, it just, it has no bottom.
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  We are going to spend on entire time together looking at one
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  single verse. Just one verse and it might
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  sound a bit ambitious, you know, to spend a whole session on one
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  sentence, but I think once we open it up, we'll find there's
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  more than enough there to keep us very busy.
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  Oh, for sure. We're looking at Matthew chapter
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  13, verse 44. It's the parable of the hidden
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  treasure. Very famous one.
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  It is, and before anyone tunes out thinking, Oh yeah, I heard
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  that one in Sunday school, you know the guy finds a box of
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  gold, buys a feel. I want to frame this for you.
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  We all live for a treasure, Every single one of us.
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  I mean, even the person who says they're not religious who kind
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  of scoffs at the whole idea of God, they are still arranging
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  their entire life around something they value most.
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  That's absolutely correct. It could be anything.
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  It might be approval from their peers.
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  It might be comfort, you know, a life.
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  Without stress or control or financial security for sure.
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  But there is always a governing value, something that sits on
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  the throne of the heart. It's a thing that gets you out
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  of bed in the morning and, well, the thing that keeps you up at
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  night too. And that treasure, whatever it
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  is for you, it acts as a master. It dictates what you're afraid
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  of losing. It dictates what you're willing
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  to do to keep it, to protect it. Right.
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  So the whole premise of our deep dive today is that this tiny
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  little story Jesus tells, it's not about taking up some new
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  religious hobby. It's about a valuation event.
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  It's about a person's entire accounting system crashing and
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  then rebooting completely. It's about trading a handful of
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  mud for a diamond and realizing with a shock that you got the
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  better end of the deal by a long shot.
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  Exactly. So for our source material
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  today, we are pulling from some pretty serious theological
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  analysis and sermons that view this text through a Reformed
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  lens. We'll be looking at how this
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  lines up with things like Westminster Confession, what it
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  tells us about the nature of the kingdom's worth, and this whole
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  idea of joy. Right, so our mission really is
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  to figure out why a man would sell everything he owns, his
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  house, his clothes, his tools, everything, and do it with joy,
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  not with regret. What does that tell us about the
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  Kingdom of Heaven? It tells us everything we need
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  to know, and to really get there, we have to start with the
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  context. You just can't understand the
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  punchline of this parable if you don't know where it's sitting in
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  Matthew's Gospel. OK, let's do that.
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  Let's set the scene. We're in Matthew chapter 13.
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  Why is this specific chapter such a critical part of the
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  whole narrative? Well, Matthew 13 is a massive
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  pivot point in Jesus's ministry. I mean, it's a huge shift.
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  If you read the Gospel chronologically, up to this
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  point, Jesus has been openly offering the Kingdom to Israel.
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  He's been doing miracles. He's teaching healing the sick.
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  He's presenting himself as the king.
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  But by the time we get to chapter 12, just before this,
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  the religious leaders commit what's known as the blasphemy of
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  the Holy Spirit. They look at his power and they
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  attribute it to Satan. It's the ultimate rejection.
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  It's a total national rejection to the Messiah, so the doors
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  kind of slam and shut on that open national acceptance.
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  So the king has been rejected by the leaders of his people.
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  So the question becomes, what happens to the Kingdom?
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  Exactly. Does it just vanish?
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  Does God just pack up and go home?
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  And the answer is no. But the form of the Kingdom
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  changes. We enter what theologians call
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  the mystery form of the Kingdom. OK, mystery is one of those
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  words that gets thrown around a lot in movies.
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  It usually involves a detective and a magnifying glass.
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  But in the Bible, specifically in the Greek, it means something
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  very particular, doesn't it? It really does.
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  In the New Testament, the word mysterion isn't a who doing it.
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  It's not a puzzle to be solved. It's a truth that was hidden in
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  the Old Testament but is now being revealed in the New.
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  So it's an unveiling of something previously concealed.
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  Precisely because Israel rejected the king, the
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  geopolitical Davidic Kingdom, you know, the one where the
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  Messiah sits on a throne in Jerusalem and rules the nations
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  with a rod of iron, That gets postponed.
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  It's still coming, but it's postponed.
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  And we step into the Church age. We step into this phase where
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  the Kingdom exists, but it's distinct from national Israel.
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  It's working in a different way. And that explains why Jesus
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  starts speaking in parables right here at this exact moment.
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  I think a lot of us assume parables are just simple
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  illustrations like let may make this difficult idea easy for you
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  to understand, but you're saying they're actually judicial?
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  They are absolutely judicial. This is so key.
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  They are a form of judgement. Jesus explicitly says he speaks
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  in parables so that seeing they may not see and hearing they may
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  not understand. That's a heavy thought.
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  The same story can illuminate one person and completely blind
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  another. It's a double edged sword to the
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  elect. To those who have ears to hear,
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  as he says, the parable reveals the secrets of the Kingdom.
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  It opens up the truth. But to those who have hardened
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  their hearts, the parable actually conceals the truth.
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  It sounds like a silly story or just nonsense to them.
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  So it's like a filter. You can think of it like the
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  sun. The same sun that melts wax will
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  harden clay. The nature of the sun hasn't
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  changed, but the nature of the material it touches is
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  different. The parables are that sunlight,
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  they harden the proud, and they melt the hearts of those being
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  called by God. So in this mystery phase, the
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  Kingdom is by its nature hidden. It's not a military conquest.
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  It's not a political party. Right.
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  It doesn't look like Rome. It doesn't look like a political
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  revolution. Earlier on this same chapter,
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  Jesus compares it to a mustard seed or to Levin and Doe.
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  It's small. It's buried.
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  It looks totally unimpressive to the naked eye.
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  It's not advancing by the sword. Not at all.
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  It advances by the quiet, internal effectual calling of
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  the Holy Spirit in the hearts of individuals.
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  Which brings us directly to our verse, verse 44.
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  The Kingdom of Heaven is like treasure hidden in a field.
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  That word hidden just fits the context perfectly then.
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  It's the whole point. I mean, if you were standing
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  there looking at Jesus ministry at that moment, what did you
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  see? You saw a Carpenter from
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  Nazareth rejected by all the important people, followed by a
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  ragtag group of fishermen. To the worldly eye, that's just
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  a field of dirt. Just a field of dirt.
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  There's no glory there. The treasure is the saving reign
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  of God, but it's veiled. It's hidden beneath humility and
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  eventually suffering. So OK, we have this field and we
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  have a character in the story, the text says which a man found.
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  Who is this guy? What do we know about?
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  Him. Well, this is really interesting
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  because if you compare him to the man in the very next
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  parable, the parable of Pearl of great Price, that man is a
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  merchant who is actively seeking fine pearls.
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  He's a professional. He's out there looking.
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  He's an expert in his field, but this man, this man isn't a
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  professional treasure hunter. He's not a wealthy investor
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  scanning the market for opportunities.
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  He. Sounds like just a regular guy.
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  He is most likely a day laborer, somebody hired to work in
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  someone else's field. He's plowing or he's digging,
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  just doing the mundane back breaking work of the day.
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  He's probably thinking about his lunch or how sore his back is.
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  And then? Clunk.
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  His plow hit something hard. Yes, he stumbles upon it.
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  He was not looking for it. And this is where the theology
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  gets very, very substantial. If we look at this through the
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  lens of Reformed theology, specifically the doctrine of
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  total depravity, this accidental discovery makes perfect sense.
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  OK, walk us through that connection.
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  How does stumbling on a box of gold relate to a doctrine like
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  Total Depravity? Well, total depravity teaches
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  that in our natural state we are spiritually blind.
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  We are, as Ephesians says, dead in our trespasses and sins, and
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  a dead man does not go looking for God.
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  He can't he. Can't Romans 3 is brutally blunt
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  about this. It says no one understands, no
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  one seeks for God. We're all busy with our own
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  little feels, you know, our own agendas, our careers, our
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  families. We aren't out there scanning the
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  horizon for the Kingdom of Heaven.
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  So the fact that he finds it by accident is actually a picture
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  of grace. It is a perfect picture of
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  sovereign grace. It's what we call effectual
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  calling. God interrupts the sinner's
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  life. The discovery isn't a reward for
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  the man's cleverness or his spiritual sensitivity.
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  He wasn't more pious than the other field worker.
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  He's just there. He was just there looking at
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  dirt, and God sovereignly opened his eyes and made him see gold.
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  It reminds me of the Westminster Confession where it talks about
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  us being passive in that initial call.
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  That's chapter 10 of the confession.
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  It describes the Sinner as being altogether passive until being
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  quickened and renewed by the Holy Spirit.
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  This man, finding the treasure, represents that very moment of
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  divine illumination. The treasure was always there.
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  Right. Other people probably walked
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  over that same spot 1000 times. 1000 times.
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  But they only saw a field. They only saw dirt.
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  They didn't have the eyes to see the value that was buried just
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  beneath the surface. But this man, in this moment, is
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  granted sight. The hiddenness of the Kingdom is
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  pierced for him. I do want to pause on the
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  literal aspect for just a second, just to ground us in the
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  history. Why was there a treasure buried
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  in a field? Was this a common thing back
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  then? Oh yes, very common in the
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  ancient world. You have to remember they didn't
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  have banks with vaults or safety deposit boxes like we do.
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  And you had constant instability.
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  Constant, frequent invasions, wars, bandits on the roads.
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  If you had any significant well, family heirlooms, gold coins,
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  the safest place to put it was in the ground.
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  You'd bury it in a nondescript place on your property.
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  And then hope you could come back for it later, right?
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  The Greek word here is the Soros.
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  It's where we get our word thesaurus, a treasury of words.
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  But here it implies A storehouse or a casket of wealth.
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  So the story assumes someone buried it, and then maybe they
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  died in a war or exiled and never came back for it, just
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  sitting there waiting to be found.
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  OK, so our guy hits the box, he pries it open, he sees what's
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  inside, and then the text says he hit it again.
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  He covers it back up. Right puts the dirt back on top.
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  Now I have to play the skeptic here for a minute, because this
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  is where I think a lot of modern readers get really stuck.
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  I know exactly where you're going with this.
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  I've heard people ask, wait a minute, is he stealing?
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  Is he being dishonest? I mean, he found it, he covered
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  it up, and now he's going to buy the land from the owner without
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  telling him there's a fortune in his own backyard.
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  That sounds a lot like insider trading.
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  Is Jesus really holding up a crook as a model for
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  discipleship? It's a fair question, and it
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  does sound a bit sketchy to our modern legalistic years.
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  We have to be so careful how we read parables.
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  Parables are what you might call spotlight stories.
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  They're not case law. They're not legal textbooks on
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  property ethics in 1st century Judea.
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  So we shouldn't get bogged down in the fine print of property
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  law. You're going to miss the entire
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  point if you do. If you start focusing on whether
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  he filed the proper paperwork with the local magistrate or if
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  he violated some kind of disclosure agreement, you
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  completely miss what Jesus is highlighting.
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  So what's in the spotlight? The spotlight in this story is
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  on the urgency and the value. Think about why he hides it.
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  It's not primarily to steal it, but to protect it.
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  He's terrified of losing it. That is the key emotion here.
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  He has a split second recognition that what he has
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  found is worth more than his life.
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  He doesn't go home and think it over for six months.
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  He doesn't form a committee to discuss the pros and cons of
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  treasure ownership. He doesn't tell his wife.
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  He tells no one. He covers it because he knows
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  that if anyone else sees this, he loses it.
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  It represents a kind of holy fear.
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  A fear of losing the gospel once you've truly seen what it is.
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  Yes, once you perceive the infinite worth of Christ, the
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  idea of walking away or letting someone else take that from you
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  becomes terrifying. You secure it.
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  You make sure it's safe. You guard the deposit, as the
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  Apostle Paul would say later on. And this all points to what we
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  could call the valuation change. The treasure itself didn't
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  change. The field didn't change.
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  The man changed. The man's entire accounting
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  system changed in a heartbeat. 5 minutes ago that field was just
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  a place to sweat and toil for a few coins.
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  Now is the most valuable piece of real estate on the planet.
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  And the only thing that changed was his knowledge.
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  His knowledge in his sight, he knows what's in it.
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  This is a picture of what happens in conversion.
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  The gospel goes from being boring religious talk or a nice
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  set of morals to being the very power of God unto salvation.
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  The value just explodes. And that shift in value is what
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  drives the very next part of the story, which is really the hinge
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  of the whole parable, the text says then in his joy.
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  In his joy in the Greek it's Apotos Karas from his joy.
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  Why is that phrase so critical? Why does the text bother to
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  mention his emotional state at all?
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  Because the joy is the cause. It's the engine of his action.
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  So often when we think about Christianity or this idea of
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  selling all to follow Jesus, we think of it as this grim heavy
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  duty, right? Like, oh, I guess I have to give
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  up all my fun. I guess I have to stop doing the
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  things I enjoy if I want to go to heaven.
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  The eat your broccoli version of faith.
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  That's a great way to put it. It's good for you, but you're
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  not going to like it. But this parable just completely
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  destroys that idea. Yeah, He doesn't sell his
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  possessions out of a sense of guilt.
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  He doesn't do it because a priest yelled at him or because
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  he's trying to earn points with God.
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  He does it because of the joy. The joy is the motivation.
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  This makes me think of that famous phrase by Thomas
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  Chalmers, the old Scottish theologian.
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  He talked about the expulsive power of a new affection.
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  That is the perfect connection to make.
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  Chalmers argued that you cannot just tell the human heart to
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  stop loving the world. You can't just try to RIP out a
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  love for sin and leave a vacuum. It doesn't work.
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  The heart is a desiring factory. It has to love something.
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  So you have to displace the lesser love with a greater love.
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  Correct. You don't just expel the old
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  affection, you displace it by introducing a superior
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  affection. The love of Christ, the beauty
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  of the Kingdom. This is what separates the
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  Gospel from legalism. OK.
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  Break that down for us. Gospel versus legalism right
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  here in this field. Legalism says I must sell all my
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  stuff in order to earn the treasure.
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  It's a purchase of merit and it's miserable.
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  You're looking at all your stuff, wishing you could keep
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  it, but grudgingly handing it over to try and buy God off.
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  It's transactional in the worst way.
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  I really miss my SIN but I want fire insurance so I guess I'll
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  make the trade. That is legalism in a nutshell.
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  But the Gospel says something completely different.
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  It says I have seen the treasure.
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  It is so magnificent, so beautiful, that all this other
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  stuff in my hands now looks like garbage.
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  So the selling isn't the price you pay, it's the logical result
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  of the discovery. The legalist sacrifices to get
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  the Christian sacrifices because he is found.
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  The man of the parable sells all his stuff and you get the sense
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  he is laughing all the way to the pawn shop.
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  That's a fantastic image, laughing all the way to the pawn
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  shop. He knows something the
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  pawnbroker doesn't know. He knows he's making the deal of
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  the century. He's getting rid of trinkets to
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  acquire an infinite fortune. And this joy, this is the mark
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  of regeneration. It's the sign of a new heart.
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  Natural willpower can fake behavior for a while.
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  You can white knuckle your way through a moral life, but you
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  cannot fake that joy that comes from the Spirit of God.
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  So we acts on this joy and the action is immediate and drastic.
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  We need to look at the transaction itself, the text
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  says. He goes and sells all that he
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  has and buys that field. The grammar here is really
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  intense. In the Greek, Matthew uses
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  what's called the historical present tense, goes, sells,
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  buys. It gives the sense of rushing,
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  of immediate energetic action. There's 0 hesitation and he
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  sells. All.
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  Not some of it, not most of it. Totality.
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  He liquidates everything. This is a picture of what
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  repentance looks like. He doesn't diversify his
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  portfolio. He doesn't say, well, I'll buy
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  the field, but I'll keep my house in the city, just in case
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  the treasure turns out to be fool's gold.
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  You can't hedge your bets. You cannot hold the world in the
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  Kingdom at the same time. You have to choose.
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  But this brings up a huge theological sticking point,
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  doesn't it? We are reformed.
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  We believe in in salvation by grace alone, through faith
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  alone. When the text says he buys the
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  field, that word can be tricky. Does that mean we earn our
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  salvation? Are we buying God?
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  That is a crucial question to ask, and the answer is
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  absolutely, unequivocally not. We have to go right back to the
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  Westminster Confession, Chapter 11 on justification.
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  We are justified by faith alone, not by our works.
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  We simply do not have a currency that God accepts.
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  Our assets are filthy rags, as the prophet Isaiah says.
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  Exactly. So what does the buying
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  represent here? It's not a commercial
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  transaction. It represents appropriation.
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  It represents the exchange of value.
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  Think of this way. OK, imagine you're standing
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  there holding a big handful of mud.
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  Wet, sticky, worthless mud, and someone comes up to you and
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  offers you a dime in the size of your first.
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  But to take the diamond, you have to open your hands.
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  You have to drop the mud. You have to empty your hands to
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  receive the gift you. Have to let it go now.
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  My question is, did you pay for the diamond with your mud?
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  No, of course not. The MUD is worthless compared to
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  the diamond. It's not a payment.
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  Correct. Economically it is not a payment
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  in any meaningful sense. But experientially you did have
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  to give something up. You had to sell your MUD.
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  That is what this transaction is.
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  We give up our self righteousness, which is actually
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  a jet, not an asset. We give up our autonomy, we give
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  up our idols, and in return we receive the infinite
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  righteousness of Christ. So the cost feels real to us.
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  You really do lose the MUD, but it's not a payment of merit to
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  God. Not at all.
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  It is an appropriation of grace through the instrument of faith.
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  We let go of the lesser thing to grasp the infinitely greater
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  thing. Let's talk about that greater
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  thing for a minute. The treasure.
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  We've been talking around it, but let's be very specific.
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  What is the treasure? The treasure is not an abstract
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  concept. It's not just Peace of Mind or a
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  sense of purpose. It isn't even heaven as just a
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  location, a place with golden streets.
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  There's more. Personal than that.
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  So much more. The treasure is the King
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  himself. It is the person of Jesus
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  Christ. To have the Kingdom is to have
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  the king. You cannot separate them.
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  In referring theology, one of the central ideas is union with
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  Christ. When we have Him by faith, we
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  have everything that is His. We have his perfect standing
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  before the Father. We get His status as a son.
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  We share in his inheritance. The treasure is the person and
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  work of Christ. You know, you mentioned earlier
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  and our sources talk about this, a double reading of this
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  parable. This is where it gets really
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  fascinating for me. We usually read it the way we've
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  been talking about it. I am the man.
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  Christ is the treasure. But there's another way to see
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  it, isn't there? Yes, and this is a beautiful,
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  rich layer of meaning that you often find in Reformed preaching
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  on this text. In this second sense, Christ is
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  the man. So Christ is the one digging in
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  the fear. Think about it for a second.
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  Who is the one who left the unsearchable riches of heaven?
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  Who came into the field of this fallen world?
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  Jesus. Jesus.
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  And what did he find here? He saw a treasure hidden in the
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  dirt, and that treasure is his people, His elect, chosen from
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  before the foundation of the world.
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  Wow, that's a humbling thought that we would be considered a
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  treasure. It's almost overwhelming, isn't
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  it? We are the treasure, but we're
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  hidden in the dirt of our own sin and rebellion.
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  And what did Jesus do when he found us?
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  He sold all. He emptied himself.
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  As Philippians 2 says, he emptied himself of his heavenly
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  glory. He embraced the incarnation.
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  He went all the way to the cross.
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  He gave up his very life. And he bought the field.
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  He redeemed the whole world to secure his people.
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  He bought us not with silver or gold, but with his own precious
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  blood. That really changes the
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  emotional weight of the story because if it's just me trying
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  to buy the field, I'm constantly worried, Did I sell enough?
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  Do I have enough joy? But if Christ is the one who
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  bought the field to get me? Then the transaction is
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  absolutely secure. It ensures that our salvation is
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  grounded in His work, not just in our response.
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  He paid the ultimate price to possess us for His joy.
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  Remember that verse in Hebrews? For the joy that was set before
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  Him, He endured the cross. That connects it perfectly.
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  The joy of the man in the parable mirrors the joy of
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  Christ in the act of redemption. It does.
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  Now we shouldn't lose that primary reading that we must
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  value him above all else. Both are true.
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  He valued us enough to die for us, and because of that, we now
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  value him enough to live for him.
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  This high view of the treasure, seeing it as Christ himself, it
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  really acts as a powerful weapon against bad theology, doesn't
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  it? We should probably address how
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  this one little verse confronts some of the modern errors we see
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  in the church today. Oh, it acts like a surgeon's
• 20:50
  scalpel. It's very precise.
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  Take the prosperity gospel, for example.
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  The idea that God's primary will for you is to be rich and
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  healthy. Your best life now.
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  That whole system, the prosperity gospel essentially
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  says use Jesus to get the field, use Jesus as a means to get the
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  money, the status, the comfort, the healing.
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  But the parable says the absolute opposite.
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  The man gives up the fields goods to get the treasure.
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  Exactly. He doesn't use the treasure to
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  get more goods. Jesus is the end, not the means
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  to another end. OK, what about what Bon Hoffer
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  called cheap Grace or what we might call easy believe ISM.
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  The idea that you can have Jesus and keep all your sin too.
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  Right, I want the treasure, but I also want to keep my mud.
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  The parable says that is impossible.
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  It's a logical contradiction. You have to buy the field.
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  The text says he sells all. Neutrality is not an option.
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  You cannot simply add the Kingdom as an accessory to a
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  worldly lifestyle. It demands total allegiance.
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  Then there's the danger of mysticism.
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  We see a lot of this today, people chasing experiences,
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  looking for inner lights or subjective feelings.
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  The error of mysticism is that it makes the feeling into the
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  treasure. But in the parable, the treasure
• 21:59
  is objective. It's a real thing in a real
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  field. Christ's work is historical.
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  It happened in space and time. We don't look inward for some
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  new revelation. We look outward to the Christ
• 22:10
  who is revealed in Scripture. The joy is a response to the
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  objective value, not the value itself.
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  And finally, moralism. We touch on this with legalism,
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  but it's worth hitting again. Moralism focuses entirely on the
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  selling. It's all about the behavior.
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  Did you give up the bad things? Are you following the rules?
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  But it ignores the finding. It ignores the joy all.
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  Cost and no benefit. Right.
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  And if you sell everything you have, but you don't actually he
• 22:33
  possessed the treasure, you're just a poor person with no
• 22:36
  treasure. You're just an ascetic without
• 22:39
  the joy that comes from seeing Christ's worth.
• 22:42
  All that selling is just dead works.
• 22:43
  It's just suffering for suffering's sake.
• 22:45
  And God is not glorified by our grumbling obedience, He is
• 22:49
  glorified by our joyful satisfaction in Him.
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  OK, so this has to move into application.
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  We've talked about the theology, the context, the errors.
• 22:56
  It corrects, but the listener is driving in their car right now
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  or doing the dishes asking. OK, this is great, but how do I
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  know if I've really found this treasure?
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  We have to test the heart, and we can do that by asking some
• 23:08
  pretty pointed diagnostic questions.
• 23:10
  I would ask you, listening right now, what is your master
• 23:13
  treasure? And how do you identify that
• 23:14
  it's not always obvious? It's not, but there are clues.
• 23:18
  Watch your mind when it's a neutral, when you're not focused
• 23:21
  on a task, where does it drift? What do you Daydream about?
• 23:25
  Is it the next vacation? Is it getting revenge on a Co
• 23:28
  worker? Is it your financial anxieties?
• 23:31
  Or ask yourself, what do you fear losing most?
• 23:34
  That is a big one. What makes you angry when it's
• 23:37
  threatened? If someone scratches your new
• 23:39
  car and you fly into a rage that lasts for three days, your car
• 23:43
  might be a little piece of your treasure.
• 23:45
  If someone critiques your work and you fall apart emotionally
• 23:48
  for a week, your reputation is your treasure.
• 23:51
  So if we do that little inventory and we realize, uh oh,
• 23:54
  I think I have some rival treasures, what's the next step?
• 23:57
  You should maybe talk about a head, heart, hands approach to.
• 24:00
  This. That's a great framework.
• 24:02
  It has to start with the head, the mind.
• 24:05
  You have to believe in intellectually that Christ is
• 24:09
  objectively better than the world.
• 24:11
  You have to know the doctrine. You have to understand why He is
• 24:13
  so valuable, His perfect life, His atoning death, His
• 24:16
  resurrection, His intercession for you right now.
• 24:18
  You have to feed your mind the truth.
• 24:20
  Then it moves to the heart, the affections.
• 24:22
  Right. You have to cultivate joy.
• 24:24
  You can't just command joy to appear out of nowhere, but you
• 24:28
  can use what we call the means of grace.
• 24:30
  This is a very reformed concept. God gave us tools to help us see
• 24:35
  his beauty, the word, the sacraments, prayer, fellowship
• 24:39
  with other believers. We place ourselves in the way of
• 24:42
  grace so that the Spirit can ignite that joy in our hearts.
• 24:45
  We. Stare at the diamond until it
• 24:46
  starts to look beautiful to us again.
• 24:48
  That's it exactly. And then finally, the hairy
• 24:52
  practical action. The man sold things.
• 24:54
  We have to be willing to liquidate our rivals.
• 24:56
  Give us some concrete examples. What does liquidating A rival
• 24:59
  treasure look like in the 21st century?
• 25:01
  Well, if money is your idol, your treasure, you liquidate it
• 25:05
  by giving it away generously and sacrificially.
• 25:07
  You break its power over your heart by being radically
• 25:10
  generous. If the approval of others is
• 25:12
  your idol, you liquidate it by telling the truth even when it's
• 25:15
  awkward, or by refusing to gossip just to fit in with the
• 25:18
  crowd. What if pleasure is your idol?
• 25:20
  Then you liquidate it through radical steps toward purity.
• 25:23
  You cut off the Internet access if you have to.
• 25:26
  You stop watching the shows that feed your lust.
• 25:28
  You get serious about it. You sell it.
• 25:30
  And this brings us back to the comfort for the Saint.
• 25:33
  Because what you're describing sounds hard.
• 25:36
  Liquidating rivals is painful. It feels like loss.
• 25:39
  It is painful in the moment. Our flesh screams against it.
• 25:43
  But remember the man in the field when he was at the market,
• 25:46
  handing over the deed to his house, Oregon, selling his
• 25:48
  family furniture? Was it loss in his mind?
• 25:52
  No, it was an exchange. A reasonable exchange, even a
• 25:55
  lopsided one, in his favor. That is the comfort for the
• 25:59
  Christian. What obedience feels hard when
• 26:01
  saying no to that cherished sin feels like you are dying.
• 26:04
  You have to preach to yourself and remind yourself I'm not
• 26:07
  losing, I am gaining. I am trading mud for a diamond.
• 26:10
  And that's where assurance comes from.
• 26:12
  It is assurance comes from seeing that new valuation system
• 26:15
  at work in your own heart when you realize wow, I actually love
• 26:19
  Jesus more than I love this sin that is powerful evidence that
• 26:22
  the spirit is alive and it work in you it's.
• 26:25
  The proof of life. It is.
• 26:27
  Well, we have covered a lot of ground today.
• 26:30
  We've gone from the dusty fields of 1st century Judea to the
• 26:33
  inner workings of the human heart.
• 26:36
  If we had to summarize the main take away for the listener
• 26:38
  today, just boil it down, what would it be?
• 26:41
  The Kingdom demands a total response because it provides a
• 26:44
  total treasure. You can't be half in, but the
• 26:47
  good news is that being all in isn't a tragedy.
• 26:50
  It's the only sane response. I love that the only sane
• 26:53
  response to finding an infinite treasure is to do whatever it
• 26:56
  takes to keep it. That's right.
• 26:58
  So here's a final thought for you to chew on as you go about
• 27:00
  your week, The world, your flesh, the devil.
• 27:04
  They are constantly asking you what will you keep?
• 27:06
  What will you build for yourself?
• 27:08
  What will you secure? But Jesus asks a completely
• 27:11
  different question. He asks what will you gain?
• 27:14
  And if you have truly found the treasure, the only sane response
• 27:18
  is to joyfully let go of the dust to grab the gold.
• 27:21
  Amen to that. Thank you for diving deep with
• 27:23
  us today on Reformed Thinking. We hope this one verse sits with
• 27:26
  you, maybe even haunts you a little bit, and ultimately
• 27:28
  brings you a great deal of joy. Indeed, until next time.
• 27:31
  See you then.