The Value of the Kingdom

The most dangerous spiritual mistake is confusing price with value. When Jesus describes the Kingdom of God as a hidden treasure and a pearl of great price (Matthew 13:44–46), he is not pitching a minor life upgrade. He is telling the truth about Christian discipleship: it can cost you everything, and it is still the best deal you will ever make.

We start by naming what everyone feels but few say out loud: obedience can sound expensive. Then we slow down and “dig” into why the Kingdom often looks ordinary on the surface, why Jesus teaches in parables, and why a holy unrest, that nagging sense that something is missing, can be the very beginning of grace. If you feel poor, hungry, or weary, that might not be failure. It might be the doorway to seeing real value.

From there, the conversation turns urgent. Opportunity does not last forever. Scripture keeps repeating the word today for a reason: distractions are loud, hearts can harden, and tomorrow is not promised. We talk about what acting now looks like in real life, surrender in prayer, cutting off what leads you into sin, making commitments that draw a line you cannot easily erase, and learning to count the cost without losing joy.

We close with hope: the Kingdom is worth it because Jesus is worth it. If you are tired of “raw deals” that take more than they give, this is an invitation to explore the riches you have in Christ and find a new affection strong enough to expel every idol. Subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review with the biggest question you are still wrestling with.

Transcript

Scripture Reading And Opening Frame

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And for the rest of us, I will invite us to stand for the reading of God's Word, which this morning is found in Matthew 13, beginning in verse 44. Just a few brief verses. The Word of God reads this way. This is Jesus speaking. The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy, he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. 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. This is God's word. Thanks be to God. You may be seated, and may God bless this reading and preaching of his word.

Price Versus Value In Real Life

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There is a difference between price and value. Price is what we pay, and value is what we get for what we pay. And we've all had the experience of spending money on something only to be ultimately disappointed with the quality that we get. And it seems really expensive when the value is not there. But on the other hand, we've had the experience of getting a lot of value out of something that we choose to spend money on, and it is so valuable to us that we really don't think that much about the price. I hope in this past week that none of your air conditioning units died. But if they did, the cost to repair or replace them even in the same day, it might hurt, but you probably wouldn't think about it that much because of all the value that you would get from that repair. So we've all had that experience. Entering God's kingdom is very expensive. Jesus says that we must sell all that we have in order to follow Him. And many people walked away from Jesus when he talked about the costly nature of entering God's kingdom because it seems too expensive. Seems too expensive. But if that's true, it just means that our eyes are in the wrong place because we must look at the value. We must look at the value. If we will devote our lives to Jesus, what will we gain? What do we get from that? And once we begin to see the value, we begin to think like the Apostle Paul, who counted everything as loss compared to the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus Christ. So this morning we're going to look at the price and the value of the kingdom of God, and we're going to look at it from three angles: the hiddenness of the kingdom, the opportunity of the kingdom, and the value of the kingdom.

The Kingdom’s Hidden Treasure

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So, first, the hiddenness of the kingdom. The kingdom of God is valuable, but its value is hidden. It's hidden just underneath the surface. Both of these parables are about people, there's two parables here. There's the treasure hidden in the field and then the merchant in search of fine pearls. And both of them are about people stumbling upon a hidden treasure. The man is presumably walking through a field. Maybe he's got his walking stick or his staff with him. And he's just minding his own business when suddenly his staff clunks down on something beneath the surface. And he digs a little and he uncovers what I imagine to be a treasure chest full of treasure. And he looks around and sees that no one is watching, and so he quickly buries it again. And then he goes and he sells everything that he has and he buys that field because he knows that a treasure is hidden in the field. To everyone else, the man may look like a fool or may look like just an ordinary transaction, but he knows what he's doing because he has done a little digging. He's done a little digging. And likewise the merchant is digging. He is searching for fine pearls. He travels all around the world, which a merchant like him would have done. He goes from port to port and he is examining the pearls that the divers have harvested. And he's looking for the good stuff, the good stuff that he can bring home to sell to his rich clientele. And he knows how to find value and how to bring it to the right buyer because he also knows how to do a little digging. He knows how to go out and search for what he's looking for. The kingdom of God, Jesus says, is a pearl of great value, and it is an unimaginable treasure which is hidden in an ordinary-looking field. The untrained eye might not notice it at all. And to understand its true value, it requires a little digging. It requires a little bit of effort in order to see what it is that we have here. My wife is pretty good at this kind of stuff. She's good at finding value and bringing it forth. But in order to do that, she has to do a little digging that other people might be unwilling to do. Bid FTA is a strange place. I don't know how many of you have ever been there. It's like the junkyard of the internet. All of the purchases that you make from online vendors that get returned typically end up in a place like BidFTA, sold by the palette and then auctioned off to the highest bidder. In order to get to these things, these items, you have to wade through their confusing interface. You have to go through the hassle of bidding against strangers. You have to show up at a nasty roach-infested warehouse to find and then to pick up your goods. But there are some items of great value that can be found there if you are willing to do a little bit of digging. And Julie's good at that. She's good at digging, she's good at recognizing what is valuable, and she's willing to get her hands dirty in order to extract that value and then to bring it to what we hope would be wealthy clientele. Well, so it is with the kingdom of God. God has set up a little field for us to dig, He has ordained a little puzzle for us to solve. That's the point of the parables. That's why Jesus taught in parables their meaning is you can tell there's a deeper meaning, but you're not quite sure what it is. He's putting it out there. You must do a little bit of digging in order to understand what he's talking about. That's the point. Jesus Christ is of infinite worth and value, and he is available to all who seek him, but in his wisdom, he does not cast his pearls before swine. He does not put it out there all at once. He desires to be sought. He desires that we would do a little digging. So in order to truly understand the value of God's kingdom, we must do a little digging. In order to discover God's kingdom, we must first have a holy unrest that is brought about by the Spirit of God. We must have a sense that something is missing in a desire to seek it, to seek it out and to find it, even if we don't know what it is that we're looking for. And this is why Jesus taught in the Beatitudes, this is Luke's version, he said, Blessed are you who are poor. We don't normally think in those terms. We normally think I'm going to be more blessed if I have more income. But Jesus says, Actually, if you're poor, blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, or in Matthew's version, who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for you shall be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh. It is a good thing that we feel poor and needy. It's a good thing that we feel hungry and thirsty for more. It's a good thing that we mourn the brokenness in our lives and we experience a holy sadness, and that we are maybe even on the brink of discouragement. It can be a good thing because all of these things inspire us to dig a little deeper. They inspire us to look more closely and to search for something of value, to search for what is real and what is stable and what is lasting, even if we don't know exactly what we're looking for. The kingdom is hidden from the wise and understanding, from those who already know it all, who already have the understanding, who are full now, who laugh now. Jesus says the kingdom is God hides the kingdom from those people, and it is revealed to the little children, to the poor and the needy, to the hungry and the thirsty. God is ready to be found by us, but he desires that we would seek him. That's the hiddenness of the kingdom. Point

The Urgency To Act Today

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two, the opportunity of the kingdom. The kingdom of God is available, but you must act now. Both of these parables describe people stumbling upon a life-changing and unrepeatable opportunity. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for both of these people. The man is walking through a field with his staff, suddenly it clunks down on the treasure chest, he looks up and he sees the for sale sign in the field. This is a life-changing opportunity, but he must act quickly, lest someone else by the field, if he does not act, he may never have that opportunity again. How many times do you find a treasure chest walking through a field? Once in your life, he found it, right? He must act. Likewise, the merchant, he's in search of fine pearls, and finally he reels in the biggest fish of his life, the fish of 10,000 casts. He finds the big kahuna, but he must act quickly, lest someone else buys it. This opportunity may never come again. God's kingdom is a treasure of unimaginable worth and a pearl of great value, but it's hidden, and we're not always in a position to see it clearly. So, if God is doing a work in you, if he is beginning to open your eyes, if he's beginning to soften your heart, if you are even now beginning to see the value of the kingdom, the scriptures say you must act now. You must act on this while you have the opportunity. Mark tells us the summary of Jesus' preaching in the first chapter of Mark. Jesus preached, the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand, meaning the opportunity is now. So he says, Repent and believe in the gospel. The kingdom has arrived in Jesus. The kingdom is open for business. It's the doors are open. Therefore, Jesus says, repent and believe. Act now while you can. The prophet Isaiah tells us in Isaiah 55, seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near. Here we are. The Lord may be found today. The Lord is near to us now. So he says, seek him now, call upon him now. We do not know how much time we have. Tomorrow is not guaranteed. The author of Hebrews urges us to enter the glorious rest of salvation with these words from Hebrews 3. He says, Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. If we hear his voice, if the preaching is beginning to break through to us, if the scriptures are beginning to make sense, they're beginning to jump out to us, if the Holy Spirit of God makes an impression on our minds and hearts and begins to give us a conviction and a desire. If we hear his voice, what should we do? Hebrews says, today. We must act today, lay hold of this opportunity. We do not know how much time we might have. We do not know whether this opportunity will come again. Today's opportunity is the only one that we can count on. We live in a world of distractions and diversions, and it is not every day that the Lord arrests our attention. So today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. Make the most of this opportunity. A few years ago, our family traveled to Dayton to go watch the solar eclipse with friends, and it was an incredible experience. On that day, there was not a cloud in the sky. We were in the path of totality. Think back on where you were. I hope you weren't working and you missed the opportunity of a lifetime. But we're in the path of totality, and for five minutes we got to watch the moon completely cover the face of the sun and turn the day into night. It was a work day, but that did not matter, because this was an opportunity that would happen only once every 70 years. If we missed it, we might never have a chance to see it again in our lifetimes. So we dropped whatever plans we might have had. They didn't matter because this opportunity was so great. If today you hear the voice of God, if this is making sense to you today, if Christian faith is making sense to you today, then act now. Repent today. Turn from your sins and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and commit yourself to Him, because it might not seem as clear tomorrow. It might not make as much sense tomorrow. Today's opportunity is the only one that we can count on. That's a real message from the Bible is that we must capitalize on this opportunity. We must act today. So what

Surrender And Cutting Off Sin

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does that look like? Well, it looks like surrender. Whether you have already committed your life to Jesus or not, we must all continually surrender to him because we find ways of wrestling back portions of our life that we say that we have given to him, but we must surrender them. In your heart and in your prayers today, especially as we come to the Lord's table, surrender everything to Jesus. Repent of your known sins and say, Jesus, I belong to you completely. Help me to work out what this means day by day. I'm going to need your help. I want to give you everything. Please help me, I surrender. So it looks like surrender. It looks like amputation to use a crass word. Jesus says that if your right hand causes you to sin, we should cut it off and throw it from us. He's not advocating for literal amputation, but he's saying that there is nothing in your life that is so valuable that it's worth hanging on to if it is causing you to sin or if it's leading you into temptation. Because that is even worse. There's nothing in your life that's so valuable. So get that accountability software today. Cut off that sinful relationship today. Rid your life of temptation today. If today this is making sense, act now because tomorrow it might not make as much sense. Mend that broken relationship today. Tomorrow is not guaranteed. And it looks like commitment. We have uh before we will celebrate the Lord's Supper today, we have a young lady who will make a public commitment to get to devote her life to Jesus Christ. And the scriptures say that we ought to do this. Make a public and a verbal commitment today. Join that volunteer team. Make the commitment. Say, I'm going to be there. You can sign me up. Become a member of the church. Be baptized. Ask someone for accountability. There's many ways that we can go public with our faith. It's not enough that we would simply believe with our heart, but Paul also says that we should confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and that we intend to follow Him. Why is that important? Because when we do that, we are drawing a line that is difficult to erase. Go public with your faith. Make a public commitment. So if you have stumbled upon the value of the kingdom, you have stumbled upon a profound opportunity that might not come again. So let's make the most of it. And then point three, the value of the kingdom. The kingdom

Why The Kingdom Is Worth It

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costs everything because the kingdom is worth everything. A third thing that Jesus' parables emphasize is, again, the price and the value of the kingdom. There is a difference between price and value. Again, the price is what you pay, and the value is what you get for what you pay, and both of those concepts are at work in these parables. Notice the price. The man finds a treasure in a field and he goes and sells all that he has in order to buy the field. And likewise the merchant goes, he finds the pearl, and he goes and he sold all that he had to buy the pearl. The only reason that they would do that is because that's the only way to get the field, or that's the only way to get the pearl. That's the price. In order to afford the field, the man must sell all that he has so that he can buy it. Otherwise, he wouldn't have done that. So the price is very great. We must notice the price. But notice now the value. Jesus tells us, then in his joy, he goes and sells all that he has. He does this with great joy. The man does not sell all that he has begrudgingly. He does not hesitate to go and sell all that he has. He does it with enthusiasm. Why? Because he knows the value. He knows that even though he must sell all that he has, he will gain even more from this transaction. In the end, he will have even more than he ever sold or that he ever gave away. It's not a problem for him to go and sell all that he has. There's a treasure in the field. The price he must pay is high, but look at what he gets for what he pays. He pays the price of a field, but he gets the treasure. And the same is true with the merchant. He sells all that he has because he has finally found the one pearl that will enable him to retire in peace. It's the pearl of great value. He knows that he will get so much more in the end, and so he does not hesitate to liquidate everything in order to get this pearl. In order to obtain the kingdom of God, it will cost us everything. And that's part of the message of these parables. Jesus said, If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother, and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. Jesus is not saying here that we must literally hate our family in the way that we would understand that, but he is saying that if we want to follow him, that he must become the greatest allegiance of our lives and the greatest priority of our lives. Our allegiance must be first to him. We must be more devoted to him than we are to our spouse and even to our own children. We must surrender our whole lives to him, or we are not disciples at all. He says, this is the condition of discipleship. Unless a man does this or a woman does this, he cannot be my disciple. Jesus encourages us to count the cost and not to make a hasty commitment because the cost is so serious. It's very serious. But what is the value? What do we get if we give all of it to Jesus? Jesus said, Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the gospel who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands with persecutions and in the age to come, eternal life. In other words, what Jesus is saying there is yes, it's going to cost you everything, but we are going to get far more than we ever paid if we will give our lives to Him. We get the eternal family of God in the church. We get that now. We get eternal life with God, which begins now, our life with God. We get to share in the sufferings and in the glory of Christ. And most importantly, we get Jesus Christ, whose glory and wisdom and love cannot be measured. The kingdom cost Everything. It seems expensive. But once you begin to see the value, everything is a price that you will joyfully pay.

Restaurant Value And Costly Discipleship

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Let's talk more about price and value. I love the restaurant scene in Cincinnati, but I am concerned. I'm a concerned patron, especially in our neighborhood here, especially in over the Rhine. I will take uh it's well, I'll just say this: it's difficult for bougie restaurants to survive in our neighborhood. I'll take my wife on a date to an expensive restaurant in OTR and we might drop $150 on a dinner, and it's good. It is good, but I'm not sure the value is there. I'm not sure it's $150 good. So we'll go once, but we might not go back, or we might not go back often because we just don't get that much for what we pay. We get a little bit. Many of these restaurants end up going out of business after a few years. On the other hand, Gulow Street and Northside, man, they have figured it out. They're one of my favorite restaurants. They don't seem to have a hard time staying profitable or staying in business. You can get a burger, a smash burger, a bag of chips, and a beer for like $11. And it's not a gourmet burger, but that is that's a really hard to find that amount of value for that price today. So when I I will I'll do that every day. I will joyfully pay that. That's a whole lot of value. Once you see the value, the price is not an issue. But if the value isn't there, suddenly it seems too expensive, and we're just more reluctant to spend. So it is with the kingdom of God. The idea of committing our entire lives to Jesus seems expensive. But once you begin to see the value, once you get a glimpse, once you taste and see that the Lord is good, your mind will be changed. So, what seems expensive? We should certainly count the cost of following Jesus. You need to take time to appreciate what it means to be a Christian. And if it does not seem crazy, if it does not seem costly, then I don't think you've really thought about it very much. Jesus encourages us to count the cost, to think about what this would really mean. So what seems expensive? If I follow Jesus, I need to surrender my money. I need to deal with money differently. If I follow Jesus, I need to surrender my sense of identity or my sexuality or how I understand myself. I need to not be in control of that. If I follow Jesus, I need to surrender the way that I run my business, the way that I treat my clients or my employees. If I follow Jesus, I need to surrender this coping mechanism that has kept me safe and that has helped me for so long. Yes, it's expensive, but it only seems expensive when we are focused on the price. Look at the value. Look at the value.

A New Love That Breaks Idols

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The Puritan Thomas Chalmers wrote a wonderful little book called The Expulsive Power of a New Affection. You don't even need to read it. The title alone says it all. That book, in that book, he argued that the only way to expel an old affection out of the heart, something that we have loved for so long, the only way to get rid of that is with a new and with a stronger affection. The only way to expel the love of money or the love of power or the love of pleasure is to find something even greater that we love even more. And that will dethrone our idols once and for all. The way to grow in our love and our commitment to Jesus is not by trying to drum up some half-hearted repentance or beating ourselves up or thinking about how sinful sin is. The God who has been waiting for us to dig just a little bit deeper. When we press in and entertain, entertain devoting our lives to Jesus, we find the God who long ago laid down his life for you. And we discover this. We discover that every other God or every other thing that you could sacrifice for is always going to be a raw deal. It's always going to take more from you than it will ever give to you. The value just isn't there. But Jesus Christ is the only God who will give far more to us than he will ever require from us. He's the only God who will bleed for us. And he is worthy of all power and honor and glory. So if you are struggling in your discipleship to Jesus as we all are, just for a moment, just for this morning, take your eyes off of the cost and begin to explore the value. Explore all of the riches that we have in Jesus Christ and gain a new affection that has power to expel every idol.

Prayer And Closing Doxology

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To this end, let us pray. Jesus, we thank you for your presence with us here this morning, and we thank you for teaching us these parables. We thank you for your powerful word, which works like a seed that once it begins to get into the deep places of our mind and heart, it begins to grow and it begins to take over. And it will begin to bear fruit if we will let it, if we will listen, if we will dig deeper, if we will cooperate with you. So we pray God that you would help us to do that this morning. Help us to explore the riches that we have in Christ. And let that be our motivation and our consideration to sell all that we have, to count everything as a loss compared to the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus our Lord. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Let's stand and give glory to God.