The Kingdom of Heaven is Like... | Episode 2

What would you give up… if you truly understood what you’ve found?

In week two of our series “The Kingdom of Heaven is like…”, we look at two of Jesus’ shortest—but most challenging—parables: the hidden treasure and the pearl of great price (Matthew 13:44–46).

In both stories, the response is the same: everything is given up… for one thing.

Why?

Because when the value becomes clear, the decision becomes obvious.

In this episode, we unpack:

•  What Jesus means by “the kingdom of heaven” 
•  Why the treasure is hidden—and why so many miss it 
•  How Christ Himself is the true treasure 
•  And how our lives reveal what we actually value 

We'd love to hear from you -- email us at ListenToShoesOff@gmail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey, welcome back to shoes off. Thanks to each of you who are listening consistently every week. We hope our little podcast is just helping your daily walk with God. We would love to hear from you. If you could email us at listen to shoesoff at gmail.com. That's all one word. Listen to shoesoff at gmail.com and give us feedback on how you're enjoying the podcast. And maybe you just have a question that we haven't addressed or a topic you would like to see in the future. We would love to hear from you. So just send us an email this week and we will try to get back to you. We are in week two of this series, the kingdom of heaven is like. And last week we talked about how the kingdom doesn't always show up big. We talked about the mustard seed and we talked about the yeast and the leaven. And those things are just small. They were possibly easy to overlook, but you know it's working in the background.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

Yeah, and if you really miss that, you can really miss out on what God is doing entirely in a larger picture.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Yeah, I've already heard some feedback around you never knew that about a mustard seed, or I never knew that about yeast and leaven. So yeah, God is really working in all of that. But today shifts the conversation because now Jesus in this scripture in Matthew moves from showing us what the kingdom looks like to showing us what it's actually worth. And this is where things really get real, and he gives parables about the value.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

Yeah, and this is because once you see it and you see the value that it has, you have to decide on what you're going to do with it. And that's what we're going to see in these parables today.

unknown 1:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

So we'll let's jump right into the scripture. We're going to be in Matthew chapter 13, and we're talking about verses 44 and 45. And these scriptures are back to back within the same context that Jesus was given these parables. So let's read what Jesus says in Matthew chapter 13, verse 44. The kingdom of heaven is like treasure buried in a field that a man found and reburied. Then in his joy, he goes and sells everything he has and he buys that field.

SPEAKER_01 1:59

And right away, right, when we read that, you see a shift from what we were talking about last week, right? Before it was the small things, it was the seed, it was the yeast, things that were not even almost noticeable to the eye. But now it's something that's incredibly valuable.

SPEAKER_00 2:12

Yeah, and that lines up with what we've researched is that Jesus has been describing the kingdom as something small in its beginnings, but now he's making it clear that it's something very valuable. And in this verse, 44, he talks about the treasure. We think there's three perspectives that we're going to bring out. Yeah, I mean, there's probably a million. There's probably more. There's probably a million, but but it's it's interesting. So Isaac, the first one, what is the treasure?

SPEAKER_01 2:37

Yeah. The first perspective of this is that the treasure is Jesus Himself. Yeah. And that may be one that I think maybe our listeners maybe would think about first, or as a maybe common interpretation of this, is that Christ is the treasure himself, everything that we need. He has the wisdom, the grace, righteousness, purpose, everything that we need is found in him. And when we in in the life of Christians, the way that we view this, we go into the field, which is the world, right? We interpret this as the world, and we find the treasure, which is Jesus. And when we find that, we want to sell everything else away, right? We want to give it really that's what repentance is, right? We give away our sinful natures, we sell it all back to the world because we don't need it anymore, and we go and focus on the treasure that is Jesus within himself. And that is maybe the the first part of this, or at least first idea of this perspective.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

Then second, by the way, this is why we love parables, right? Because Jesus spoke in parables that meant something to them. And I think the second part is consider the treasure hidden in the field, the gospel and the word of God. And this man found the gospel and the word of God, and then went back and sold everything in his life to dedicate his whole entire life to taking that gospel and the word and spreading it across the field, which could be the world.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

And that could be something that we're kind of dealing with today, at least in my generation and this kind of younger generation. We have all social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or X or what YouTube, everything. Like we're filled with various distractions. And I've even thought, too, like a lot of my TikTok feed is Christian apologetics or Christian teachers or theologists, but all of that is nothing compared to the Bible within itself. Right. And I think at least my generation, I think we're learning more about the Bible from people on the internet than our actual understanding of the Bible and ourselves. Yeah. And when we do that, we're actually missing out on the real teacher because we're told as we read, and if we don't understand her, the Holy Spirit's gonna do it. Right. And why I don't need even our listeners, right? You're listening to us right now, but you don't need us uh all the time. And right, we can definitely help it in various ways. But like the spirit's gonna guide you as you're going through the word. So maybe that's an elimination of distraction. Maybe it's spend more time in the Bible itself. That is the real treasure that we have today.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

Yeah. And then the third perspective, what do you think? See, I think this one's awesome. I think the third treasure is us.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

Oh, yeah. I think I think it's you, I think it's me. I think it's everybody. And I think we're the treasure. And this is where my head goes too when I read this parable. But we were buried in our sin. It says the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure, buried in a field, and we were buried in our sin. And literally in graves, it says that we're dead. Like we're like while we were dead, but we're buried in that field, and a man found us. Jesus saw us, and Jesus wanted to have us. He wanted us to have us for eternity with him because we were his creation. He wanted us to be reconciled back to him and to the Father. So he goes and he sells everything he has. So he goes and he gives his life, every part of it. Yeah, sells everything that he has. He is on the cross, he gives up the spirit and he says it is finished. And that it is finished, he has made a transaction, he has sold everything, his entire life. I love that perspective, his reputation, everything. And what he did is he buys the field, he bought us. He absolutely bought us. That that's where my head kind of goes with this. But that it's so beautiful in that.

SPEAKER_00 6:06

Yeah, the beautiful thing is that all three of these are applicable to our Christian life. And when we read it, all of it can make sense. And one thing I do want to point out, because someone someone may say, Hey, you you missed over the fact that the man found it and then he reburied it in the field. And so I just want to point out that if you go back to the law in this day, if you were just finding something in a field, you couldn't just take it. So what he had to do, it was actually if he found it and he brought it, then the landowner actually owned that, right? So he had to rebury it according to the law and then go buy the whole entire field so he could just have that one treasure that was in the field. And so it's not that he was hiding something that he had found. So we don't hide God's word, we want to share it, but according to the law, he had to rebury it so he could go by the entire field, so he could give up his whole entire life and give it. So I love the perspectives. Again, the treasure here, obviously, it's value no matter what, in the kingdom of God. But you've talked about the treasure being Christ Himself. We've talked about the treasure being the gospel and the word, and then we talked about the treasure being us. Yeah. Where Jesus is the man in the parable that's going and given his whole entire life to give us the kingdom of God. And so before we move on to verse 45, let's talk a little bit about why people miss this. And this is important because a lot of people only look at the surface of the field. They see the Bible, they hear the message, but they don't really see the value that's underneath.

SPEAKER_01 7:40

Yeah, and this was a big thing with parables within itself. And Jesus was even asked, why do we even teach from parables? Yeah. And Jesus said something along the lines of that's because they don't know the myth, like the mysteries have not been revealed to them yet, and stuff like that. But I think the answer is because of what we just did today, of the different interpretations of it. And it means something to us today. If Jesus would have just been clear to them, we would be learning about, you know, what it would have been one thing that could have been taken out of it. Yeah. But there is probably I mean, we just came up with three. Yeah. And we said there's probably millions of other things. And that's, I think, why Jesus looked at it.

SPEAKER_00 8:18

The other key point here in this parable is if you don't dig, you don't discover.

unknown 8:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

And so the man was in the field, he would have never discovered the treasure unless he dug for it. And I think that's something that sometimes we read over is that there's a response here. And this is everything to this. When the man finds it, uh everything changes. And so there is a response he has to do in order to what he had found. Yeah. And so that's really the part you can't ignore. He he wasn't forced to give up everything, he wanted to. Right. And so this goes to our listeners. When Jesus reveals the treasure of the kingdom to us, there's a response that we have to do to that. Yeah. He could have buried it and just left it and never came back, but he didn't. The response he did is he went and sold everything and he was joyous about it so he could buy the entire land for that treasure. So that's another piece that we really want to bring out to this parable is that we are responsible for the response to the treasure that God has given us.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

Yeah, very much so. And I want to add to this, just because I don't want anyone to interpret this incorrectly of what we're trying to say. What we're not saying is that if you understand that you need Jesus, that you need to go and sell all your possessions or you need to go fix yourself. And then you can come back and come to Christ. That's not what we're trying to say. That's not the point of this. The response we're talking about is when you realize that, like, hey, I'm lost, I'm a sinner, I need Christ. Yeah, you're in that moment selling your like you're selling the idea that you don't need you're you don't need the world. You're selling your worldly wants and desires at that very moment and then going to Christ. Yeah. So it is not what we're saying is not like if you want Jesus and you don't know Jesus today, you do not need to go fix yourself first. Right. Because Jesus will, he's going to do that. But what you can do is in that moment of saying, I need you, Christ, you're selling the need for the world and going to the true treasure that you found in front of you.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

Amen. Amen. And it reminds me of a little funny illustration. And my wife is going to laugh on this part of the podcast. But the point is, like, when you truly find something that you want, you're not going to rest until it's yours. Yeah. And that's what this man did. Joyously do that. But I can tell you, I have a car problem at times or a guitar problem. And when I find something that I want, I do not rest until I it is mine. Like I need this car or I need this guitar and I'll go change everything for it. But it's just a funny little illustration that really relates to this that this man was joyous and he was not going to rest until that land was his. Yeah. Because of the treasure that got him.

SPEAKER_01 11:00

And this is why I love that version of this that we looked at where it says that Jesus, like if we put in this, Jesus is that man, he did not rest until he had everything that he wanted, which was us.

SPEAKER_00 11:12

Yeah. So let's move to the next verse. Again, it's the verse right next to it. And these two scriptures are together talking about the value of the kingdom of God. And this one talks about the pearl of great value. Yeah, and here's that second example in Matthew 13.

SPEAKER_01 11:27

This is verses 45 and 46. It says, Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man seeking goodly pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it.

SPEAKER_00 11:40

So this is a different parable. Jesus is talking about a merchant man that is searching for something. So he's not stumbling into it. He didn't dig for something, but he's actually searching for fine pearls. He's actually looking for this specific treasure.

SPEAKER_01 11:55

And that's kind of the that's an important part of him actually searching because it's it pulls a couple of different things. One, it shows us that some people find Christ unexpectedly. And I know that you've probably heard it a million times, and I've probably heard it too. Of people that were like, I wasn't looking for God. I came to church because my dad wanted me to, or my grandma brought dragged me in. I wasn't looking for anything. Yep. Um, but they found Christ unexpectedly. Yeah. And they once they found it, they were looking and he found one that was priceless. This was, oh, I I see it. This is above anything else. Right. And he went and sold everything he had and he bought it. Yeah. And went for it because that was the most important thing.

SPEAKER_00 12:34

Yeah.

unknown 12:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:35

And to your point, I mean, there's many testimonies, probably even some listeners that were in that situation, where, hey, I just went to church with a friend or a family member, but God got a hold of me. Yeah. And at that moment, I gave up everything to go accept that pearl of great price that that he was given to me. And then others spend their whole lives searching for something. Yeah. Real. That's extremely true too. And I think that's another perspective of this parable is that there's many even today that are searching for something. And when Christ reveals himself to them, that's when they again have to make that decision to to go and g get everything up from the world and accept the value of what the God has given them for the kingdom.

SPEAKER_01 13:18

And with that too, I've also heard the testimony of people before. Like I I was searching for happiness in the world. And people look for that in worldly things, in money or in possessions, or even alcohol, drugs, addictions, I mean stuff like that, too. That they look for it, but they said there's nothing makes them happy. Yeah. And it's okay to be like if you're wanting to buy a house or something like that. That's a it is a pearl, right? It's one of those things that you do want, and it's things like that. But this is a greater pearl in Christ itself.

SPEAKER_00 13:47

And I guess a third perspective is we could give the same as the other one, right? This merchant man, just picture this merchant man as Jesus himself, and we are the priceless pearl. Yeah. So he went searching for us. It's almost like the lost sheep. Yeah. The shepherd. Like he went searching for that one. And when he found it, he gave up his life. Yeah. So that he could, so he could buy it. And certainly he paid the price on the cross.

SPEAKER_01 14:11

And there's tons of, I mean, you go through the creation story, and God created, I mean, every animal upon the earth, the beautiful scenery have, the canyons, everything that we have on this earth, the food, the fruit, the trees, the like I said, the animals, all of that, all of those are pearls because God created all of those. But nothing was like the priceless pearls of his creation made in his own image. Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:32

That is you and I. So here's what Jesus is making clear with these parables the kingdom isn't just valuable, it's worth everything. It is worth us joyously giving up everything to invest in the kingdom of God.

SPEAKER_01 14:46

Yeah, and this is the idea that everybody is in these parables too is that everybody is searching for something and that we all want something that satisfies us. And that's why we look for things, worldly things. But now, as our as my pastor always says, I believe everyone has a Jesus-sized hole in their heart and they're just waiting for him to fill it.

SPEAKER_00 15:04

Yeah. I mean, the world will tell you that success, money, status, being the smartest person or knowledge. And while all those things are good, that's not valuable for the kingdom of heaven. I mean, a lot of people settle for those kind of things that look valuable, but they aren't the real thing.

SPEAKER_01 15:21

Yeah, and they may be pearls, like we just said, those could be pearls, but that doesn't mean they're the fine pearls.

SPEAKER_00 15:26

The counterfeit pearls. Yeah. But Christ is definitely not counterfeit. He's a real thing. And when you find him, there's nothing else that compares to him in this world. So let's bring this into real life applications that you can take with you this week, because this is just isn't something about just understanding the parable. It's something that God wants us to take into our lives and apply it.

SPEAKER_01 15:45

Yeah, and it's something that we need to value at this exact moment. It's something we need to value right now.

SPEAKER_00 15:51

Yeah, let me just say this too. If something's valuable to you, it's going to show up in your life. Yeah. It is going to be very real. And if it's not real to you, it's going to be real to others. It is very easy to see when you're with someone where they put their value.

SPEAKER_01 16:04

Yeah. And this is where you where people put their time or where people put their focus or people put their priorities in life.

SPEAKER_00 16:12

And materials. And so and this is where it gets on us. And this is a question that we have to to ourselves and even the listeners is what are we treating more valuable than Christ? And sometimes it's not the obvious thing, sometimes it's something that's comfortable to us. Sometimes it's something that provides a distraction for us.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

And the call here isn't a pressure, but a clarity. And when you see the value of Christ clearly, things really start um to shift. And I do want to go just because we've been adding this on all of it. And we said this question of what are we treating as more valuable than Christ. Yeah. But we could ask the question of what does Christ view more valuable than us? And the answer is nothing. Yeah. And that's why, that's why that purchase is there. What an amazing look at that. So let's look at kind of here's some of our challenges for the week. And the first one is kind of what we just kind of ended there with the applications is take an honest look at your life and think what is getting the best of your time? What is getting your best energy? What's getting your uh attention? Biblically, we would ask, where are your first fruits going? Where are those things that, or what are you making a priority in your life?

SPEAKER_00 17:27

Yeah, and then ask yourself in that, does this reflect what I say I value most? So just in perspective, and maybe a rhetorical question to yourself, is and what I am doing and what I am showing, is that reflecting what I say I value the most? And if you say you value Christ the most, is that what people see? Or do they see the car you're driving? Or do they see the material things that you're showing off? But again, have we really invested in the kingdom of heaven? And by the way, I'm not saying any of those things are bad, yeah, but we can easily let those things take priority and show more value than the treasure in the kingdom of heaven.

SPEAKER_01 18:08

Yeah, and and if you're in that area of reflection and you notice that something is out of alignment, I urge you to not ignore it. Right. That's not something that we want to ignore. We want to if we if we think Christ is our priority and we want Christ to be our priority, then we need to change those things in our life to reflect that He is.

SPEAKER_00 18:28

So be intentional this week. If you need to make a shift in that value or that perspective, we hope that these parables has brought you some insight into what the kingdom of heaven is like as it compares to these two parables found in Matthew 13, 44 and 45. So let's close in prayer and we pray that God will just work with you this week and show you in your life where maybe there's things to reprioritize so others can see the value of the kingdom of God in our lives. Let's pray. God, help us to see clearly what you have for us, not just what we say that matters, but what actually has our attention and our focus. Show us where we've settled for things that really are just temporary and don't last. And give us a clarity recognize what truly matters. Help us to value you in our hearts and trust that in choosing you, we're gaining something greater than anything we leave behind. In Jesus' name. Amen.