Two Journeys

We’re looking this morning at Philippians 1:12-26. And as you give your attention to that text, I want to begin by asking you kind of a central question. What is your main purpose today? What is your goal? What do you hope to accomplish today? What is your goal for today? That’s kind of a strange question, but I’m asking it because you are to be a purposeful being. Why are you alive today? And not just today, but for your whole life? What is the central desire of your life? What is the one thing that if that did not get accomplished, your life would be worthless? What are you living for? And I think in Philippians 1:12-26, we have a clear statement from the Apostle Paul of what his central purpose was, and nothing else mattered other than that purpose. Ordinarily, as an expositor, I just begin at verse 12, in this case, and just move through, but I want to start at verse 20. Look at verse 20 and you’re going to see in verse 20, I believe Paul’s central purpose in his life. He says, “I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed but will have sufficient courage, so that now as always, Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.” That Christ be exalted, now that was the central purpose of Paul’s life. That was his central desire.

In what way is God too small?

Now, this word “exalted,” “megaluno” in the Greek, is a fascinating word. It means to enlarge, to make bigger, to make greater. It’s used of a child growing up. It’s used of a king that expands his horizons, the horizons of his empire to make it larger. It’s used of a man’s fame and reputation, spreading far and wide. It’s used of the size and scope of one’s opportunities getting larger. It has to do with something being of a certain size and then getting larger, becoming greater. Paul’s deepest desire, then, is that that would happen to Christ. That Christ would be enlarged, that Christ would be made greater, that He would grow immense. Now, this is an odd thing. If you think about the Old Testament scripture verse that you’ve heard before, a worship verse in Psalms 34:3, it says, “O magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt His name together.” And we’ve been doing that this morning in worship. It’s been a delight and we’ve gotten together as believers in Christ and we have magnified the Lord. Literally, let’s get together and make God bigger. The more I go on like this, the more you see that it’s a strange way to think. How can you, a finite, sinful being, make an infinite God bigger? How can you make Him greater?

Solomon in his prayer of dedication for the temple said, “But will God really dwell on the earth? The heavens, even the highest heavens cannot contain you. How much less this temple that I have built?” The word “contain” there in that verse means hold in, like a container. It’s used of the bronze bath of 3,000 baths out front of the temple. 17,500 gallons, it contained. When you think about a milk jug on a breakfast table this morning, the milk was contained in the container. Solomon said, “There’s no container for you, God. The infinite universe is not big enough to hold you in.” And so we sang this morning, “Be exalted, O God, above the heavens.” The heavens aren’t big enough for you, God. Jeremiah the prophet said, “Can anyone hide in secret places so that I cannot see him? Declares the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth? Declares the Lord.” Yes, you do, Lord. You are an infinite, infinite being. The universe is immeasurably vast, able to hold trillions and trillions of huge stars, and it’s not big enough to contain the infinite God.

And so I’ve come back to that same question. How can finite, sinful human beings like us make God bigger? In what way is God too small? Well, he’s too small in our hearts and he’s too small in our minds, too. His reputation in this world is too small. People think too small thoughts of Christ all the time. And in that way, and in that way alone is Christ to be exalted, made greater, made bigger. I want to do that this morning. I want to think greater thoughts of Christ as a result of our worship time together. I want to have a far greater estimation of his magnitude than I did when I walked in here this morning. The issue is that he, that Christ, is too small to me and you and to the lost world around us. That’s the problem. And Paul lived that that would no longer be the case, that Christ would be exalted in his body. That’s what he wanted.

An example: Jupiter

By way of illustration, if you think about the planet Jupiter, it’s approximately 11 times larger than the Earth. It’s about 100,000 miles in diameter, could hold all the other planets in the solar system inside it. It’s an immense, immense ball of gas in the middle of space, but to us, it appears as a tiny dot of light. How can that be? Because we’re so far removed from it. It’s just one of the physical principles of light that the further away you are from something, the smaller it appears. And so it is relationally with God. The further and further we are away from him, the tinier he appears to us. In 1610, January, when Galileo pointed his new telescope up at Jupiter, he could see four moons orbiting Jupiter. It’s also, there’s some indication that he could see for the first time that great red spot, that giant red spot, which I think is twice as large as the Earth. Just immense, but invisible to the naked eye. The telescope made Jupiter appear larger to him, but it didn’t do a thing to Jupiter. It didn’t change it at all.

 Christ’s Kingdom is too small

And so it is with our worship and with our evangelism and with all of these things, they don’t do anything to God in himself. He is, he always has been, he always will be immense, majestic, powerful and glorious. But he makes all of these things, worship and evangelism, makes God appear greater to us and Paul lived for that. That’s why he was alive. He said, “I just want to be used by you, God, that others would see you greater than they have before.” I want to exalt Christ. Christ is too small, therefore, not in reality, but in our estimation. And so, the Apostle Paul said, “Here I am today, use me, pour me out for your glory, that you be exalted. That your reputation will be increased, that people would see you as you really are.” Not only is Christ too small, not in reality but in our estimation, but Christ’s kingdom is too small.

God the Father had measured out a bigger scope than it presently contains. And so the kingdom must advance, it must grow. Revelations 7:9, which we have quoted many times, “After that, the Apostle John said, ‘I looked and there I saw before the throne and before the lamb, a great multitude that no one could count from every tribe and language, and people and nations standing before the throne and in front of the lamb, wearing white robes and holding palm branches and worshipping Christ.”And so God has marked out a bigger territory than Christ’s kingdom presently contains. And so therefore, his kingdom is too small. And at every moment, the Apostle Paul said, “I want to use my body, my time, my resources, that Christ be exalted.” I want him to be exalted. Now, he says in the verse, “I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.” You see, therefore, the need for courage that Christ be exalted.

Also, the whole epistle is an epistle of joy. There’s a need for joy. And he says, “I am fully confident that I’m going to get everything I need that Christ would be exalted.” I’m not going to be ashamed of Christ. And I’m going to rejoice in my suffering, to the end that Christ be exalted.

And so that’s what the whole Book of Philippians is about, it’s what the whole New Testament is about, it’s what the whole Bible is about, that Christ be exalted. And it’s what Paul’s life was about too, in his body, whether by life or by death. That’s what he cared about. That’s the center of this text that we’re looking at this morning.

The advance of the Gospel

Verse 20. It’s an odd place to begin, I know, but I wanted to begin logically and not in order. So we’re starting at verse 20 and we’re saying this is the reason for everything. Now, what were the means to that end? God is a God not just of the end but of the means. How is he going to get there? How is Christ going to be exalted? There are two means, one is in verse 12 and the other in verse 25. For Christ to be magnified, there must be growth, right? There must be a greater and greater thing happening. There must be advance or progress. Now, look at verse 12. He says, “Now, I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel.” Do you see that word advance? It’s an important word. Now, what does he mean, what has happened to me? Well, he is in chains for Christ, he is incarcerated. He may be in a prison, he may be under house arrest but he is in chains for Christ. And he wants them to know that it’s actually served to advance the gospel.

So the subordinate meaning number one is that Christ is to be exalted to the global worldwide advance of the gospel, that Christ is preached globally, worldwide, the global advance. The second is individual personal progress in Christ, and we see that in verse 25. He says, “I expect that I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith.” Do you see the word “progress”? If you were the kind of person that writes in your Bible, I’m not, but you may be, you would circle the word “advance” in verse 12 and the word “progress” in verse 25. They’re both from the same Greek word, prokope. They both mean the same thing.

This is where I get the idea of Two Journeys, two things that we’re making progress in:

Paul cares nothing for his physical life except for those two things. That’s why he lives. He lives that Christ will be magnified through these two ways, that the gospel be advanced globally, and that you Philippian Christians would make progress in your faith. That’s why he’s alive, and he’s very clear about that. It was all about progress. Now, the Philippian epistle, the whole letter, is very clear about the need for progress. We’ve already seen it in that majestic verse, in verse 1:6, “He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” That’s of that second category, that second type, that individual Christians would be built up to full, Christ-like maturity. There’s going to be progress made. It says the same thing in chapter 2, in which he says, “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose.” -again, individual progress.

And then he speaks about his own individual progress. He says in chapter 3:12, “Not that I have already obtained all this or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.” There’s internal progress that Paul is making. 

Same thing in 3:14. He says, “I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” So the whole letter is an epistle of progress, of making progress in the journey. And we get that out of 1:12, “What has happened to me has served to advance the Gospel.” And 1:25, “I expect that I will stay for your progress in the faith.” Those are the subordinate meanings. So number one, that Christ would be exalted. Well, how is He going to be exalted? By growth in two ways- globally through the preaching of the gospel worldwide, and individually through each Christian growing up to full maturity in Christ. 

What is your strategy, Lord? Can you imagine a strategy conference between the Apostle to the Gentiles, Paul, and Jesus Christ, his Lord? “Here I am, Lord, I’m finally converted after all that time, the road to Damascus has happened and you have, for some reason, appointed me Apostle to the Gentiles. There’s a huge gentile world out there. Romans and Greeks, Scythians and all kinds of folks that need to come to faith in Christ. I am willing to preach one rally after another. I’m willing to go from city to city to preach to tens of thousands. I’m willing to do anything for you. What is your strategy?”

Well, the Lord would say, “This is my approach. I’m going to put you in chains under house arrest or in prison somewhere, and you’re going to sit there. And I’m going to bring one Praetorian guard a day, or maybe two or three a day, and I’m going to give you that one shot every day. Make the most of it. Make the most of it. ” 

Now, God’s ways are not our ways. His thoughts are not our thoughts. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are his ways higher than our ways and his thoughts higher than our thoughts.” We would think, “What a waste! Here’s this fluent, confident, powerful preacher for Christ, and you’re going to lock him up with one Praetorian guard a day, or two or three at the most?” But God knew what he was doing. Do you realize that within the end of the first century AD, church history shows that there were local congregations planted in the North of England? There were Christians at the end of the first century. How do you think they got there? Look at verse 13. He says, “As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard,” in the NIV, do you see the palace guard there? Praetorian is the Greek word. Now, the Praetorian guards were the elite. They were the cream of the cream. They were the best. They were Caesar’s personal bodyguard and his emissaries all over the world. They were the sharpest soldiers, the best soldiers in the world. They were world conquerors. And Paul was chained to at least one of them a day. 

God’s chosen strategy, then, for Paul, was that he be poured out like a drink offering. Now, first century prisons involved immense suffering. You remember the scene of Paul and Silas in that darkened dungeon in the middle of the night singing praise songs. It was all they could do because it was such a horrendous situation. There was no food, no water, there was no light, nothing but suffering. And so it was for the Apostle Paul, and it was that way right from the very beginning of his life when he was first called to be an apostle, when he was first called to be a Christian. Ananias went to lay hands on him and heal his eyes and to baptize him as a Christian. And Ananias did not want to go. And the Lord spoke to him and said, “Go. This man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.” And he had been showing him. He had been showing him day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year, showing him how much he had to suffer for Christ.

In Acts 20, Paul says, “I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me. However, I count my life worth nothing to me if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me, the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace.” And what were those sufferings like? Well, he gives a litany of them in 2 Corinthians chapter 11, he says, “I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely and been exposed to death again and again. Five times I received from the Jews the 40 lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked. Three times I was shipwrecked. I spent a day and a night in the open sea. I’ve been constantly on the move. I’ve been in danger from rivers and danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles, in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea and in danger from false brothers, I have labored and toiled. And I’ve often gone without sleep. I’ve known hunger and thirst, and I’ve often gone without food. I have been cold and naked. Beside everything else I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches.” That was the nature of Paul’s life.

And even in Philippians 2 we see it. In Philippians 2:17, he says, “Even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you. So you too should be glad and rejoice with me.” Poured out like a drink offering, that’s just like wine poured on the fire of sacrifice. That means poured out unto death. And he said, “Even if that’s what happens to me, poured out like a drink offering, I rejoice.” And so God’s strategy for worldwide global advance and for the individual progress of the Philippians was suffering for the messenger, namely the Apostle Paul. Very much following after Jesus’ pattern in John 12:24, “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains by itself a single seed, but if it dies it bears many seeds.” And so here’s the thing, Christ should be exalted and magnified. How? Through the global progress of the gospel and the individual progress of Christians in the gospel. God’s strategy is suffering for both of those, and apart from suffering, neither one happens. It’s impossible.

Alright, well, now we get to the core of this whole section, verses 12-26. And the core really has to do with attitude. It has to do with your attitude, how you feel about it. He said, “I want you to known brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel.” I want you to know it and I want you to know my attitude toward this. Paul actually was going through suffering. He actually was suffering for Christ. It wasn’t just theory. It’s one thing for us here at First Baptist Church, in these pews and in our clothes and all that, to talk about suffering for the gospel. Paul didn’t just talk about suffering for the gospel, he was going through it. God was putting him on display. Nobody lights a lamp and hides it under a bushel. Instead he puts it up on a stand and gives light to everyone in the house. He was putting Paul on display, and so he was going through suffering. And every day he was willing to suffer more. “I want to preach the gospel, I want to preach Christ, I want to preach boldly.”

William Tyndale

I think about the story of William Tyndale. He was arrested for translating the Bible, the scriptures, into the common vernacular, into English. And Tyndale’s words are immortalized in the King James Version. Most of the King James Version comes from Tyndale. He’s an amazing linguist, translator. And what brought great suffering into his life was this translation work, he was arrested for it, put in prison. He was in a freezing prison cell in the Netherlands. And he wrote to the officials who were in charge of his incarceration with a request, he said, “I would like a warmer blanket, I would like a coat and a hat. But above all, if you send me none of these things, please send the following: My Hebrew Bible, my Hebrew grammar, and Hebrew dictionary so I can continue my work.” Now, that’s bold. Alright, it’s cold here in the Netherlands, especially in the winter, so send a hat and a blanket and a coat, but if you don’t send any of those things, send me my Hebrew work so I can keep going in my translation. That’s the boldness of the messenger of God.

John Bunyan

Same thing with John Bunyan, a Baptist preacher in prison for preaching the gospel in England without a license. He was offered his freedom again and again, if he would just simply make a promise not to preach anymore. It’s one thing to be incarcerated, but it’s another thing to be incarcerated when you have the key right in your hand. When you can walk out any time you want if you’ll just make a simple promise that you will not preach without a license again. And he suffered greatly. He said, “The parting of me from my wife and my children has been as the ripping of my flesh from my bones.” It caused him intense psychological suffering to be away from his wife and his blind daughter. And yet he refused to give up preaching the gospel and he said to his jailer, when offered again if you will just simply promise not to preach anymore, he said, “I can make you this promise, if I am free today, I will preach tomorrow.” And so he stayed in prison and he refused to give in to self-pity. He refused to give in to the blackness of despair and discouragement. He just wrote Pilgrim’s Progress. He made the most of his time. 

And so Paul’s attitude is put on display, “I want you to know how I think about my suffering. I want you to see my attitude. I’m in chains for Christ and I’m glad and I rejoice. Now, God’s strategy is he’s bringing me one Praetorian a day, at least. If I act like all the other pagan prisoners, what effect am I going to have on that Praetorian guard? None. But if, on the other hand, I live and preach and act and display Christ so clearly that when that man walks out, he’s wondering who is the prisoner, and who’s the free man? Then God can use what’s going on for me.” The principle of the mustard seed will take over. One day with one Praetorian is worth more than a hundred preaching in front of huge crowds if God is in the one and not in the other. “And so just give me my one guard today, I’m going to make the most of it. I’m going to make the most of it.”

And so we’ve already seen fruit. There’s specific fruit that’s already come. Look at verse 14. He says, “As a result of my preaching, most of the brothers in the Lord have been encouraged to speak the word of God more courageously and fearlessly.”  In essence, “My brothers and sisters are preaching more boldly because they see what’s happening to me. I’ve already been arrested, I’m suffering, and yet I’m thriving. I’m closer to Christ than I ever was before. And they’re saying, ‘Whatever he has, I want some of that. I’m not afraid anymore.’ And they’re bold to go out and preach. And so, my one imprisonment has made a bunch of preachers and sharers of the gospel and evangelists. They’re bold now. They’re not afraid anymore.”

And so it is with us when we read testimonies from Voice of the Martyrs, or some of these other things of our brothers and sisters in Christ in China and in Muslim countries that are going through great physical suffering for Christ, and they’re not yielding. It gives us courage. We’re willing to pay the price to witness to a co-worker or to a neighbor, or a relative, somebody sitting next to us on an airplane. Ours is a small price to pay and there is almost a sense of shame that we would even hesitate, compared to the suffering that others have gone through. And so we’re willing to pay the price. And so look at the good fruit, look at the good things that are coming. “Because I am thriving in prison. I’m not gloomy, I’m not depressed, I’m not irritable, I’m thriving, I’m joyful, I’m trusting God, the brothers in the Lord have been encouraged to be bolder with the gospel, too. And an odd thing has happened, too- some of my enemies are preaching the true gospel.” What an odd thing.

The strangest people

I said when I mentioned this a few weeks ago, these are some of the strangest people in the whole Bible. I don’t understand them. Preaching the true gospel to get Paul in trouble? That’s an odd thing, really. Now, we mentioned at the time that if they were preaching a false gospel, Paul would put the anathema on them, they’d be eternally cursed if they preached the false gospel, but they didn’t do that here. So they’re preaching the true gospel from bad motives- trying to stir up trouble for him while he’s in chains. And he says, “What do I care? I might die today, it doesn’t matter what happens to me. The important thing is that Christ is being exalted, that he’s being magnified through the preaching of the true gospel. That’s what matters to me. So we’re seeing good things and I still get my one Praetorian every day. Some of them have requested to be chained up with me again!” They want part two with that man! “He’s an odd guy, but I feel differently when I talk to him. Things become clear, and then other things become a little muddled, and I just want to talk to him some more.” 

Now, we don’t have any record that there were any Praetorians that specifically requested to be chained to Paul the second time. But we do have something. Look at the end of this book, in Philippians  4:21, he says, “Greet all the saints in Christ Jesus. The brothers who are with me send greetings.” And then he says in verse 22, “All the saints send you greetings, especially those who belong to Caesar’s household.” Hmmm. Now, read between the lines. What’s going on here? Could this be the Praetorian Guard? Could it be that some of them have come to faith in Christ? Could it be they’ve led some of Caesar’s relatives, some cousins, some sisters, brothers to Christ? Could it be that the gospel is making the kind of progress it would have needed to make for the Roman Emperor to declare himself a Christian three centuries later? Oh, yes! 

The gospel is making good progress. It’s working. Christ is being exalted in my body. By the worldwide advance of the gospel as God gets a bunch of secret service zealous Roman soldiers to come to faith in Christ, and go to Northern England and preach the gospel there. Fearless men they were. Bold and courageous, coming to faith in Christ, leading some of Caesar’s relatives to faith as well. “It’s working! The gospel’s advancing around the world! Gentiles are coming to faith in Christ. The gospel is being preached. And, meanwhile, my example is helping individual Roman Christians grow in their faith. And Philippians, I want you to grow, too. I want you to be bold. I want you to be confident. I want you to stand firm for the Lord.” He’ll get to that at the end of chapter 1. “Conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel.” I want you to grow. It’s all happening. But attitude is the key.”

Now, let me ask you a question. You don’t need to answer, but just think about it. If you entered that trial with the same attitude with which you enter most of the trials you face in your life, what kind of fruit would have come from your incarceration? How do you carry yourself when your vessel is upset and jolted a bit? What comes out? What reveals itself at that time? And that’s a convicting question for me, too. Do I rejoice when suffering and trouble comes to me, because then I can put Christ on display and exalt and magnify him through my troubles? I want to. I yearn that my life would be used that way. And Paul felt that too. Paul was not a superman, he was flesh and blood. And so therefore his greatest need, he then reveals to the Philippians, it’s not that he would be released. “Get me out of here! Thanks for the money, but get me out of here!” He’s not saying that. He does say thank you for the money in chapter 4, but he doesn’t say, “Get me out of here.” He says, “Pray for me. Pray for me that I’ll keep having a joyful, spirit-filled, godly Christ-like attitude.” That’s the key to the whole system, “Pray for me.”

 He asked for prayer. His pressing need was prayer, not that he would be released. He says in verses 18-20, “Yes, and I will continue to rejoice for I know that through your prayers and the help given by the Spirit of Jesus Christ, what has happened to me will turn out for my deliverance.” My deliverance from what? Well, “I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now, as always, Christ will be exalted in my body.” “I need deliverance from shame. I need deliverance from weakness. I need deliverance from cowardice. I need deliverance from worldliness. All these things that sap the strength of the gospel power working through me. So Philippians, pray for me, that’s what I really need. I need deliverance from wickedness and sin so that Christ will be exalted in my body through my confident, bold, joyful proclamation.”

And so, there’s a partnership, “Philippians, join with the Holy Spirit of God in giving me what I need to see my ministry through.” He says, “You know, I’m not eager to get out of here. I wouldn’t mind dying. I’d be happy to do that.” We’ll talk about that, God willing, next time. Verse 21, “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.” “If it’s my choice, I want to leave and go and be with Christ, which is better by far. But it’s better for you if I stay. And so, I’m not praying to get out of here. I’m not trying to get out of my circumstance. No, no, I’m praying that I will be bold and courageous for the gospel for Jesus Christ. And so please keep praying for me.” 

Now, what application can we take for this for ourselves? Well, I look at verse 27, now, we’re not going to get there until probably, God willing, two weeks hence, that says, “Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Imitate me.” It’s in effect what he’s saying. When you are suffering for the gospel, be joyful, be bold, be courageous, stand firm, don’t be afraid, but keep preaching, keep preaching the gospel so that Christ will be exalted. And so, I say to you first, fix your heart on Christ and on His glory first above all things, live for that. Let that be the center of your day to day. I asked you at the beginning, what are you alive for today? What is your purpose today? What’s your number one goal? Let Christ be exalted in your body, whether you live or die. Number one, set your heart on that. Now, you cannot do that if you’re a non-Christian. If you come in here today and you don’t know what I’m talking about, and you have never given your life to Christ, you can’t set your heart on Christ’s exaltation until you come to faith in Christ.

 And it wouldn’t do for you to come hear me talk about the preaching of the gospel to others and you miss it yourselves. Jesus died on the cross for sin, that he might bring you to heaven. Don’t leave this place without trusting in Christ today, without talking to me or to some brother or sister and say, “I need Christ, I want him to be my Savior today.” But if you’ve already trusted in Christ, then set your heart above all things on this, that Christ be exalted in your body. And then, live for the magnification of Christ through the worldwide global advance of the gospel and through your own progress in Christ. Live that Christ be exalted that way. Spend your time that way. Spend your effort that way, your money, spend it that way. Your resources, everything, spend it on that. The worldwide advance of the gospel and yourself, progress in Christ. 

Come to the sharing and the witnessing next Sunday after worship. Now, there’s a practical application. We’re going to be going door to door, witnessing and trying to lead people to Christ. You may be able to lead someone to Christ, or you may get a door slammed in your face. Count it all joy, just like Paul did. But come and serve next Sunday. And understand that no progress can be made without some kind of suffering. And then finally, if I could urge you to pray for suffering Christians around the world. You notice in this text, Paul says, “Please join me in my struggle by praying to God for me.” Do you know you have brothers and sisters in Christ that are getting beaten, probably right now as I speak, because they’re Christians? I think in all the world, there may be no worse physical situation to be in than to be incarcerated by a torturer. I mean, think about it, it’s worse than any disease, it’s worse than any physical situation that you can think of, that you would be incarcerated by somebody who’s using their mind and their creativity to bring you pain and suffering. And there are brothers and sisters in Christ, in China and Muslim countries and Hindu places that are facing those kinds of things. Pray for them. Hebrews 13:3 says, “Remember those who are in prison as if you were their fellow prisoners.” Sustain them in prayer.

We are looking at Philippians chapter one. We’re going to focus on verse 9-11. The section of Scripture that was read this morning, verse 3-11, includes an example of Paul’s prayer life. Here Paul prays for the perfection of those who are in ministry partnership with him. He’s praying for the perfection of the Philippian Christians, and here we come to the essential, mysterious nature of our faith. Paul has absolute confidence, un-shakable confidence, that the God who began the good work in the Philippians will most certainly carry it on to perfection in the day of Christ Jesus. He is absolutely confident about that. There’s no doubt in his mind, (now I’m going to speak in the human way, the way I think) and yet he prays. Now, I say “and yet” because that’s the way we think, right? Well, if something is absolutely certain, if God’s already said he’s going to do it, there’s no doubt about it. It’s guaranteed. What do we need to pray for? Why do we need to be involved in that? And so we think, “It’s absolutely certain, and yet he prays,” as though those two things didn’t go together; but they do go together. The apostle Paul prays for what is absolutely certain. He asks God to do what he’s already determined to do. And this is exactly what Jesus is doing right now for you if you’re a child of God. He is praying to his Heavenly Father to complete his purpose in your life. Is there any doubt in Jesus’ mind about whether that will happen? None at all, and yet, speaking in that human way, He prays for you all the time.

I would want to turn the whole thing around this morning and say, “And therefore he prays.” Not, “And yet he prays.” “Therefore he prays because it’s absolutely guaranteed. Therefore he prays because it’s in the will of God. Therefore he prays because God has said this is what he’s going to do.” May all prayers outside of God’s will be swept away like chaff. They’re worthless, they’re meaningless. Why should we pray anything but what God has willed? And so it is our desire to pray in accordance with what God is doing, and God is revealing it to us by his will. We need to pray, and we need to pray more spiritually than we do. We pray too earthly, don’t we? We need to pray more spiritually like the apostle Paul does.

Jonathan Edwards

In 1742, during the Great Awakening, Jonathan Edwards was sifting through all of the effects of that great revival. Revivals are exciting and we continue to receive from one of you, anonymously, a prayer for revival. Keep it coming and keep praying for us, that God would pour out His Spirit. It’s a wonderful thing. But there’s a lot of upheaval that comes at times like that, and a lot of uncertainty as people are responding emotionally and people’s lives are being turned upside down, and it’s hard to know always what is really happening there. Has somebody, for example, really been converted to Christ or are they just going through the show on the outside? And so He’s dealing with the issue between those that are genuinely converted and those that are gospel hypocrites. And He zeros in on this matter of prayer, and it’s a very interesting thing. I came across this sermon when I was in Japan and the title alone stuck me; Hypocrites Deficient In Private Prayer, that’s the title of the sermon. Hypocrites Deficient In Private Prayer, and this is what he says: “I would exhort those who have entertained a hope of there being true converts, and yet, since their supposed conversion, have left off the duty of secret prayer and do ordinarily allow themselves in the omission of it to throw away their hope. If you have left off calling upon God, it is time for you to leave off hoping and flattering yourselves with an imagination that you are children of God. Probably, it will be a very difficult thing for you to do this. It is hard for a man to let go of a hope of Heaven on which he has once allowed himself to lay hold and which he has retained for a considerable time. True conversion is a rare thing. But that men are brought off from a false hope of conversion after they are once settled and established in it and have continued in it for some time is much more rare still.”

Now, what is he doing? He is just being a physician of the soul under the leadership of God, saying, “If you don’t pray at all in your private prayer closet, you are not truly a Christian because this is something that God works when he truly saves you.” But I began to think about the title more, and I thought if we could go back in time and talk to the esteemed and humble Mr. Edwards and say, “Mr. Edwards, is your prayer life everything you would like it to be? Do you pray always according to God’s will? Do you pray with the fervency and the passion and the faith that you should,” he would say, “No. I also am deficient in private prayer.”

Paul, Our Tutor

So I stand under that today as well. I find myself deficient in private prayer. I pray. I pray all the time. I pray daily. I enjoy prayer. But I am deficient in private prayer. And I want to learn more about it. I want to pray better than I do. And I don’t think you can come to a better mentor and teacher than the Apostle Paul. We’re sitting under his tutelage this morning.  We’re going to learn from him how to pray. We’re going to learn from him. And we began last week in three steps.

We looked at the first step, namely the character of Paul’s prayer life in verse 3-8. This morning, with God’s help, we’re going to complete the three-step look at Paul’s prayers here; at the content of Paul’s prayer life, and also the goal of Paul’s prayer life:

Three Steps:

1) The Character of Paul’s Prayer Life (verses 3-8)

2) The Content of Paul’s Prayer Life (verses 9-11a)

3) The Goal of Paul’s Prayer Life (verse 11b)

First, by way of review, in verses 3-8, we have the character of Paul’s prayer life. We looked at this last week, and we saw eight features:

Thankfulness, for example, in verse 3, “I thank my God every time I remember you,” that also brought us to remembrance that he was constantly remembering, was other-centered in that regard. We see, thirdly, the constancy or the consistency of Paul. He says, “Every time I remember you in all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy.” There is a repetition here, a sense of constancy. He doesn’t pray just once, but he prays all the time. And fourth, he prays with joy. There is a great joy in his prayer life; not drudgery, but a sense of delight in being a partner with God and what God is doing in the lives of the Philippians. And the reasons why he prays for them- he’s not an unreasoning prayer man, but he has joy for a reason and he prays for a reason. And what are those reasons? Well, the fellowship or the partnership. He saw himself as a partner with God and what God was doing in the life of the Philippians, just as they were partners with him financially, they’d given him money, and what he was doing in his ministry. And then we also see confidence. Being confident of this, “That he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” I almost can’t say that verse enough. Doesn’t it delight you to know that God doesn’t quit on us, but he continues to work until his purposes are complete, until we are perfect? And then finally we saw affection, verse 7 and 8. “It is right for me to feel this way about all of you since I have you in my heart, for whether I am in chains or defending or confirming the gospel, all of you share in God’s grace with me.” Verse 8, “God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.” The affectionate relationship he had with them and so it flowed out into prayer.

So that was the character of Paul’s prayer life last time, but now we have to look at content and we need to be instructed in this matter of content, the Bible tells us so. It says so. It says in Romans 8:26, “In the same way the spirit helps us in our weakness; we don’t know what to pray for.” There it is. Well, don’t be insulted by that, it’s true of us all. We don’t know what to pray for. We want to pray, we have the spirit of adoption within us, we cry out, “Abba Father,” but now give us some prayer work to do. Tell us what we can pray for because we can’t think of what it should be.

We need help in this matter of the content of our prayer life. We need to be instructed. If left to ourselves, we will pray for what we ought not to pray for. We’ll even pray for things that we can spend on our carnal pleasures. In James chapter 4, “When you ask, you do not receive because you ask with wrong motives that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” So we need to be instructed. And why? Because we want a fruitful prayer life. We want to pray for things that God wants to do. We want to pray for things that will result in an abundant harvest of fruit to the glory of God. That’s what we want to pray for because it says in 1 John 5, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.” And if we know that he hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have what we ask of Him. I want that kind of a prayer life. So I need to be instructed by Paul what to pray for, and that’s what he does here in verse 9 through 11a, “And this is my prayer,” he says. “This is what I pray for so that you will know how I’m praying for you. This is my prayer, that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.”

A.W. Pink

And so we can learn what we should be praying for. A.W. Pink clears away a misunderstanding about prayer for us in this matter. “The prevailing idea,” says Pink, “seems to be that I come to God and ask him for something that I want and then I expect him to give me that which I have asked, but this is a most dishonoring and degrading conception. The popular belief reduces God to a servant, our servant, doing our bidding, performing our pleasure, granting our desires. Prayer is not intended to change God’s purpose nor is it to move him to form fresh purposes. God has decreed that certain events shall come to pass through the means he has appointed for their accomplishment. Prayer is the way and means that God has appointed for the communication of the blessings of his goodness to his people.” I think that clears it. We’re not coming to God and saying, “Here’s my idea of what would be good for you to do.” It’s not that at all, but rather we are asking that God would do his will. Martin Luther says, “Prayer is not overcoming God’s reluctance, but laying hold of his willingness.” And God is willing to give us those things that are in concert with his purpose in his plan. So we want to pray that way. Paul here shows us what kinds of things we should be asking God for as we pray for one another.

The Sanctification Calling

Now, in our study in Philippians, we’re going to see that God is calling us to an internal journey of holiness we call sanctification, and you’re going to be called to work out your salvation with fear and trembling and to become more and more like Jesus. But let me tell you something, no matter how well you do in that journey, in that battle, you will never do enough to satisfy God’s justice for judgment day. Never. And so you will, in the end, stand before Christ in justification righteousness, a gift of Christ’s perfect righteousness given to you at the moment you believed, by faith alone, a gift of perfect righteousness. And if you’re a Christian today, that’s how God sees you right now as you’re sitting there in the pew. Isn’t that wonderful? He just sees you in Christ. He sees you in His perfect righteousness. And yet He wants you to be filled with the fruit of that righteousness. He wants it to bear fruit in your life. He wants you yourself to be a righteous man or woman. He wants you to live a righteous and upright life. The fruit of righteousness, a full harvest that glorifies God, of temptations that are hard for you to say no to but you do, by faith, through the Holy Spirit, put that sin to death. He is greatly honored by that. He wants that fruit of prayers prayed for the glory of God after the pattern that we’ve been talking about this morning. You go into the room, you close the door, and you pray to your father who’s unseen and your father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. He sees that righteousness, of money given to ministries or to the poor when the right hand didn’t know what the left hand was doing, just by faith to honor Him. He wants that fruit of righteousness, of evangelism and missions done to the glory of God, standing firm and proclaiming the good news to the lost so that they might have eternal life. He wants that fruit. He wants you to be filled with fruitful labor and righteousness until the day of Christ. And so this is what He yearns for, and so He’s praying for discernment for the Philippians that they would be protected negatively from all that might defile them, from false doctrines and from false practices, and then He prays positively that they will be filled to overflowing with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ. Isn’t that marvelous? And so we have seen, in a beautiful way, the character of Paul’s prayer life. We saw it last time. How did he carry himself in his prayers? And today, so far, we’ve seen the content. What is he praying for?

Finally, we’re going to see the goal of Paul’s prayer life, in verse 11B, it says, “To the glory and praise of God.”

Oh, this is so vital. It’s so important that you understand that this is Paul’s ultimate goal. Our salvation, as vital, as important as it is, is not an end in itself. Our salvation was done for the glory and praise of God, that he might be glorified by saving sinners like us. Our salvation is vitally important. This world that we live in, this physical world is delightful. The beauty of the earth and the power of hurricanes and all the things that we can see is a valuable thing, for God made it. But Jesus said that the value of one single soul is greater than the whole physical world. “For what would it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?” So in Jesus’ hierarchy, his way of thinking, the physical world is here, a single human soul is higher than the physical world.

And let me pause here and say if you are listening to me today and you don’t know Jesus as your Lord and savior, this is the most vital moment for you because you’re confronted with the righteousness of Jesus Christ through the blood that He shed on the cross. Do you know Him as your savior? It wouldn’t profit you at all to listen to a thousand sermons and own a thousand companies and have millions and billions of dollars if you lost your soul. What would it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul? But as vitally important as your soul is, there is something higher, and that is the glory of God, the Glory of God.

Now, I was the Southern Baptist Convention years ago in Saint Louis. Rick Warren was there speaking and he’s a very effective, energetic pastor and he’s written a book, I think is in the top 10 right now in The New York Times Best Seller list. That’s remarkable, for a pastor to write a book that makes it to the Top 10 New York Times Best Seller. He already wrote The Purpose Driven Church and now he’s making it personal, The Purpose Driven Life. I’ve heard it’s very good and I’m looking forward to reading it. I really am. Anyway, he was up there and he was talking about evangelism, very passionately, and it was very moving. And I have a very, very soft heart for evangelism, missions, and a desire to lead the lost to Christ. It’s worth living for and it’s worth dying for, it really is. He was talking about how his father on his deathbed was begging him to be active in evangelism and missions. Now, you can imagine how effective that was and moving. He showed a video clip of many people getting baptized, in slow motion even. Baptism in slow motion. As I was looking at it, I was moved and I just yearned for that in our church. I yearn to see people getting baptized here far more than they are and that you would all be faithful and effective witnesses for Christ, that is my prayer and my desire. Now, in the Southern Baptist Convention, there are microphones set up all over the auditorium for the business meetings that are going to come later. And Rick Warren, at the end of his presentation, said, “If anyone can think of a higher value than the salvation of a single soul, I want you to come to the microphone now and tell us what it is. Come on, anybody. Come and tell us what could be of a higher value than the salvation of a single soul.” I decided to stay in my seat. I didn’t think it would be in good order, but if I had gotten up, I would have said, “The glory of God.” And you know what he would have said? “Well, yes, that, of course!” But how easily we forget! How easily we reverse them. To the glory and praise of God, that’s why I’m praying, that every knee would bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God, the Father. That’s the purpose- that God would be glorified.

When we get to heaven and all of our righteous acts are revealed, they will be purified by his grace and we will have our crowns and all of our glory. We will shine like the sun in the kingdom of God and we will be glorified as Christians. We will be.

Do you realize that all of your radiance will be borrowed from Christ? All of it is his. The whole city, the New Jerusalem will be clear, so that the glory of God can permeate and move through and be beautiful and majestic. Your salvation is a glorious display of God and his attributes- his justice, his mercy, his righteousness, his compassion, his long suffering. We’re on display for God’s glory, and so also Paul is praying that the Philippians would be on display for God’s glory. To the glory and praise of God, that’s why he prays.

Christ has figured your salvation out. He’s written the book. He knows how to get you saved, and I mean saved to the uttermost. He knows how to get you all the way. He is the author and he will be the perfecter of your faith, but all of it is for the purpose of the glory and praise of God. And so, turn to the very end of this book, chapter four, verse 20, not the final word, but close, verse19 says, “And my God will supply all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus,” verse 20, “To our God and Father be glory forever and ever. Amen.” Now, that is why he prays, and that is why you need to pray too; that God will be revealed, that he would be glorified.

Now, what kind of application can we take from this? First, understand Paul’s prayer life, understand his character, how he carried himself in his prayer life. Understand what he prayed for. “Well, Pastor, that sounds a lot like head knowledge.” Well, yes it is, head knowledge. Understand his prayer life. Read these things, look over them, understand them. Understand his prayer life. Understand the way he carried himself and what he prayed for, that love may abound more and more, that they would have knowledge and depth of insight, that they might be discerning, that they might have purity of life and perseverance and fruitfulness right to the end. And understand the goal, the ultimate goal of Paul’s prayer life, that God be glorified. So take in all that head knowledge, understand what prayer really is, and then ask that God would move it into your heart and transform the way you really pray. Pray this way. Pray for each other this way. I would urge you today, before you go to bed, to choose somebody that you know, another Christian, and just take their name through verse 9 through 11. For example, pray for your friend Jim, “I pray for Jim, that Jim’s love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that he might be able to discern what is best, and that Jim might be pure and blameless in his life, that he might be filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.” You pray like that and you’re going to be changed too. It’s a transforming prayer. Pray like that.

I’ve put together a list of all of Paul’s prayers and if you come tonight, I’ll give it out to as many as... I did about a hundred copies, and what I’d like to do is actually just read over Paul’s prayers and just pray them for people. You go to prayer meetings at churches and there’s a lot of physical praying going on, and I think that’s fine because our bodies were given to us by God and we pray for people’s ailments and we pray for their surgeries and we pray for their cancer and their tumor, and we should. But someone once said, “More prayers are going out for the Saints to keep them from going to heaven than to help them along their journey spiritually to heaven.” Sooner or later, we’re going to go, and so I think it would be better for us to realize we are going to leave these bodies behind when we go to heaven, for flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. So let’s pray spiritually, to the glory and praise of God.

Last week we had the opportunity to look, in a big picture sort of way, at the book of Philippians. Afterwards Scott Markley said to me, “You know, you set out all the meals for us to sniff the aroma, but we didn't get a chance to eat any of them.” Well, now we get a chance to dig in and to try to understand this majestic letter of Paul to the Philippians. We're going to be looking, for two weeks, at Philippians 1:1-11. Especially next week, more at verses 9-11. But today we're going to take a look at Paul’s prayer life and his concern for the Philippians right from the very beginning of this epistle.

Now if you were to travel in the northern area of upstate New York, along the Thousand Islands area, you could visit probably one of the strangest mansions in America. It was a mansion built by a millionaire, a multi-millionaire named George Boldt, for he and his wife, Louise, to live in. 1899. He loved her very much and he wanted to give her this mansion and for them to move in on her birthday, which was Valentine’s Day. And so they built it on an island called Heart Island, and he used all the finest materials, the best craftsmen he could find. He even brought some over from Europe. He imported things, art works, tapestries, sculptures, all kinds of things, and they worked on it for four years, shaping it, preparing it for the day when the two of them would move in.

 1904, in January, the work was almost complete. I mean, 95% done. There were crates of furniture waiting to be unpacked when suddenly a telegram came to stop all work because Louise had died. It was really a tragic thing, and he decided he would never set foot on that island again, and all work completely shut down and it’s remained that way ever since. And now you can tour it and look at it, but it’s been that way ever since, kind of frozen in time. It was a good work that was begun but never completed. It was a mansion that was started and never finished.

A Work in Progress

Isn't it a delight to know that that’s not going to happen to you if you are Christian? Isn't it a delight to know that, “he who began a good work in you will most certainly carry it on to completion, until the day of Christ Jesus?” And how fitting is this analogy, this picture, from this illustration of a mansion where a loving couple are going to live together? For Jesus said, “I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me. So that you will also may be where I am.” And so He’s going to prepare a place. One of the translations in John 14 says, “In my father’s house are many mansions.” There’s a sense of an ornate and majestic place to live. But what’s really fascinating is in Ephesians chapter two it says that, “you are being built together to be a dwelling in which God lives in you by His spirit.”

 You are the mansion. You're the unfinished property. And not just you but all over the world brothers and sisters in Christ, being shaped and molded and worked on, we are works in progress. We're unfinished. And what a delight it is to know that He is the architect and the executor of the plan, and He will complete it on the day of Christ Jesus. Isn't that a delight? I mean there’s nothing else to rejoice in other than that this morning. We can just go home. Please sit back down. I don't want you to leave yet because there’s more things. But it’s a delight to know the sovereignty of God in salvation. And it gives us energy, and it gives us power to fight the good fight for Christ. And that’s what I get out of this text.

Now, in order to understand the heart that Paul has for these people, you have to understand the background history of this church. Where did it come from? Now, the story is told in Acts 16 as Paul and Silas were out on the second missionary journey. They'd reached a certain place in Asia Minor where they could not make any more progress. The spirit of Christ would just not let them move, in any direction. They wanted to go east toward Asia but they just couldn't make any progress, and so they were just checked in the Spirit, and they were sensitive enough to the Spirit to just not move until they knew what to do.

 And so one night Paul had a vision of a man from Macedonia saying, “Come over and help us.” Macedonia, now that was west. That was toward Europe. That was toward Rome. That the gospel should move westward, that was God’s plan at that point. The man of Macedonia, that is the origins of Alexander the Great. And from Macedonia, you know Philippi was named for Alexander’s father, Philip of Macedon. And from that little area came a world conqueror, Alexander, probably the greatest the world had ever seen at that point, maybe the greatest of all time, never lost a battle. And he rode eastward, coming down the same roads that the gospel is now coming back up westward, and there is this man of Macedonia. At one point the Macedonians ruled the world, and now he’s standing, this man from Macedonia, saying, “We need help. Come over and help us.” And they did need help because they stood at that moment under the wrath and curse of God, because of their sins. They needed a savior. They needed Christ.

A Glorious History

And so Paul and Silas went over to Philippi and they began to preach the gospel, and there weren't enough Jews, apparently, in Philippi to have a synagogue so there were just some women that used to meet down at the river. And Paul went down there, and one of them was Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth. And Paul brought her to faith in Christ by the preaching of the gospel. And she said, “If you consider us genuine believers in Christ, come and stay at our home.” And that became... I think Lydia’s home became the first church in Europe, really a house church. And what a delightful time Paul and Silas had there, and they continued to preach the gospel, and the progress was made. It wasn't long before there was some demonic opposition in the form of a slave girl who had a demon by which she predicted the future. And they followed Paul and Silas along saying, “These men are telling you how to be saved.”

 Well, that was true, but they didn't want a demon proclaiming that. And finally Paul, so vexed in spirit, turned around and commanded the demon, “In the name of Jesus Christ, come out”, and the demon came out, and the girl was healed and brought to her right mind. Well, her owners, having no concern for her whatsoever, only for the money that they could make from her, were incensed and they got the authorities down on Paul and Silas. And they were beaten publicly, humiliated, brought to shame, and then thrown into the Philippian jail, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. Now, if that were you, what attitude would you have that night? Here you're trying to be faithful, trying to preach the gospel, and this is what happens to you. But Paul and Silas, in probably one of their most glowing, shining moments, in the middle of the night, dark and in prison, their backs still bloody, put to public shame by their beating, are singing praise songs to Jesus Christ. Overflowing with gratitude and praise, they were just praising him. And all the other prisoners were listening to them.

And God moved. There was an earthquake and of a kind that I've never heard of since then, a special kind that open the doors of the jail and took their chains off. That kind of earthquake. Have you ever heard of an earthquake like that? A very surgical strike earthquake. That kind. So there they sat, but they didn't run anywhere. The Philippian jailer commanded to guard them carefully, his life on the line if they went out, thought that of course they'd escaped, the door was open. He draws his sword to commit suicide, his life, his soul, hanging in the balance at that moment.

 Evidence of Love and Affection

Paul, out of compassion, calls out and says, “Don't harm yourself. We're all here.” And he calls for lights, runs in trembling, brings them out trembling, and says, “What must I do to be saved?” And that very night, the jailer and his family... they come to faith in Christ. They wash Paul’s and Silas’ wounds and feed them and they are baptized that very night. And so Paul has an incredible affection for this church, incredible memories of what God did, a delight, and he pours that out in prayer. And he knows that they aren't finished yet in their work. He knows that the fact that they've sent him money now through Epaphroditus is a good sign that they continue to track with the gospel, that they are partners, sharing with him and his ministry financially. And so he’s encouraged and he’s joyful, but he’s seeing now an answer to all his prayers. He’s so concerned about their spiritual development and he wants to let them know. And so he speaks to them and he writes this letter. From the very beginning, we see a sense of his compassion and his love for them.

 Establishing Timothy

 Verse one says, “Paul and Timothy, bond servants,[or servants,] of Christ Jesus.” It’s interesting to me how he includes Timothy right from the start here. The letter really isn’t from Timothy. I'm not in any way questioning inerrancy, I'm not saying that at all. But throughout the letter he says, “I”, and “me”, and “my”, more than in any other letter. This is a very personal letter from Paul. A total of 128 times in 104 verses, he says either I, me, or my. He uses these pronouns only 33 times in Ephesians, which is a much longer book. So this is a very intensely personal letter from Paul. He loves these people and he’s pouring out his heart. But he puts Timothy in the byline there because he wants them to accept Timothy as an authority figure, and he’s going to be sending Timothy back with Epaphroditus in his place. Paul can't leave, he’s in chains for Christ, so he’s going to send Timothy back. But this letter’s very much from Paul.

The Nature of a Servant

Paul calls himself and Timothy bond-servants, or servants, of Jesus Christ. This is a very, very important title that Paul frequently uses for himself, patterned after Christ’s own attitude, as he’s going to say in Chapter 2. “That Jesus, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped but made himself nothing taking on the very nature of a servant.” This is the same word used of Jesus, a bond servant of God, the servant of the Lord from Isaiah, he is the servant, and he’s going to save. Paul says, “Your attitude should be the same, [or have this mind in you,] which was also in Christ.” Paul has it too. And so did Timothy. The attitude of a servant patterned after also the command of Christ, “Whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant. And whoever wants to be first must be your slave. Just as the son of man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Sainthood Explained

Well, who was the letter addressed to? Well, it’s addressed to the Saints in Christ Jesus at Philippi.

 Now, I come from a Catholic background, and in the Catholic church, this means something different than it does to us. A saint is somebody who has been so designated by the Catholic Church, by the Pope. And there're certain steps... There’s a certain a procedure for becoming a saint in the Catholic Church. The process can only begin at least five years after the person’s death. A local bishop amasses data and information about their life and then an official Vatican theologian writes a biography and a history. And then a panel of eight theologians gets together and votes on whether you're venerable. That’s what the word means, that you could be able to be venerated as a saint. But even then, it’s not full beatification, blessedness of a saint. There has to be at least one medical and theologically verifiable miracle connected with your life, at least once. At least one, and then you can be a saint. And you know, in the middle ages, the veneration of saints reached worship-level. People would travel from all over Europe to just be near an artifact or a relic of a saint, and if you could touch one, perhaps you would be healed. And this was rife during the time of Luther and he spoke against it, cathedrals, and other things, this pilgrimage for relics and for saints.

This is not what the word means, not at all. The word means, “believer in Jesus Christ”. A true believer in Christ, that’s all. We are the saints in Christ Jesus. It’s used again and again in the New Testament of simple, humble, believers in Christ. You say, “Well, I never really thought of myself as a saint.” Well, the alternative is to not be a Christian, in the New Testament way of thinking. So, you are a saint. Act like it, that’s all. Act like a saint, because you are one if you're a believer in Christ.

Addressing Significant Leaders

Well, the letter isn't just addressed to the saints in Christ Jesus, but also to the overseers and deacons. These are two positions of authority, they are people that are called out. Deacons, it’s uncertain exactly what their role was, the word simply means servant, but that doesn't mean anything because Paul’s a bond servant and Jesus, also a servant. But clearly a significant role for these two. The overseers, “Episcopos,” from which we get Episcopalian, overseers. And always there’s a plurality of these folks in a local church. Some think they're pastors, others think that they are leaders called elders, a deep subject that we're not going to get into right now. But basically these are the forms of government, these leaders. And why he singles them out here, I don't really know, he doesn't do this in his other epistles, but he really does reach out here to the overseers and deacons. Perhaps that he’s going to commit this letter to them and that they would entrust it to the people, read it to them and teach it to them as well.

Conduits of Grace

Having given his greeting, he then says, “Grace and peace to you from God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” You know, you read that in just about everyone of Paul’s letters. And you could just read over it, “Well, there’s that grace and peace to you again.” But the fact of the matter is, you don't need grace just to begin the Christian life. You don't just need grace when you're saved by praying the sinner’s prayer and walking the aisle. You need grace every moment. You need a regular stream of flowing of grace to you at all times. You need grace to cover your sin, you need grace to fight off the devil, you need grace to understand the scripture, you need grace to get along with other Christians. It’s true. And they need grace to get along with you.

We need a flowing of God’s grace, and it’s constantly coming to us through conduits, through pipelines from heaven. And each one of us are called to be that for each other, a conduit of grace, and Paul meant to be that for the Philippians. He meant his letter to be a pipeline or a conduit of grace to sustain them and help them in their journey in Christ. Grace to you and peace from God our Father.

We are going to look at Paul’s prayer life in three steps:

Let’s look first at the character of Paul’s prayer life in verse 3 through 8.

1. Thankfulness

 The first thing we notice, “I thank my God”,  thankfulness- right from the start in his prayer life. Look at it in verse 3, “I thank my God every time I remember you”. And I believe that Paul’s commitment to a lifestyle of thanksgiving was the key to his rejoicing in the Lord always. An attitude of thankfulness, to thank God for everything that’s happening, realizing that all things work together for good, even being imprisoned after having been beaten, even that can work together for good, and sure it did. And so they were very thankful. Thankful people are delightful to be around, aren't they? Don't you just love being around thankful people? Conversely, isn't it a burden to be around people who are not thankful? It’s a trouble to us, isn't it? Well then, let’s be convicted ourselves. Are we thankful people? Do we exude gratitude to God, realizing that everything we get is better than what we truly deserve? If you believe that then you'll be thankful about anything you get because it’s all flowing to us from a good and loving Father who’s doing a great work in us.

 Thankful people are humble people too, aren't they? They realize that they can't take credit for any of the good things that are going on in their lives. God gets the glory, he gets the credit, and so therefore, thankful people are very secure people, not easily moved or shaken because all things come from God. It’s fascinating to me, and I think it makes a significant theological point that Paul is consistently thanking God for the spiritual work going on in Christian’s lives. He’s thanking God for their salvation. That’s important to me. He does it again and again. He does it in Romans 1:8, he does it in 1 Corinthians 1:4, Colossians 1:3, 1 Thessalonians 1:2, again and again, thanking God for the salvation of these people. Very pointedly, he does it in Romans 6:17 when he says, “Thanks be to God that though you used to be slaves to sin, you whole-heartedly obeyed that form of teaching to which you were entrusted.” Remember how when I preached on that? I cleared it all out and said, “Thanks be to God that you obeyed.” You'll be the rest of your life figuring that one out. We usually take credit for our obedience, and our faith and our repentance, and they are our works, we're called to do it. But Paul gave ultimate glory and thanks to God for them, and that’s a solid foundation for prayer life, isn't it? Thankfulness to God.

 2. Remembrance

 Secondly, remembrance. He says, “every time I remember you”, “in all my remembrance of you”. Paul was constantly remembering the Philippians. This shows I think a very important point that he is not a self-centered individual. What happens to you when you go through sufferings? Who do you start to think about the most? Isn't it you? Isn't this what we do? When we go through sufferings, we turn inward and begin to focus on ourselves. But Jesus did not do this. Up on the cross, he’s saying, “Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing.” And John and Mary, they're at the foot of the cross and he says, “Behold your son”, and “Here is your mother”, and then John takes care of Mary. And then to the thief on the cross he says, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” Three of Jesus’ seven statements are others-centered, while he’s dying on the cross under the wrath of God for our sin, he’s others-centered.

Paul was a dim reflection of that here. He’s in prison, suffering for the gospel, and he’s thinking about them. He’s others-centered, and he’s remembering them, and every time he thinks about them he just can't stop thanking God. For that vision of the man of Macedonia, for the trip over there, for the first that he met Lydia by the river and how she was so open to the gospel, and how she opened her home and the times they had in that little house church. And then, he’s remembering God’s power in driving that demon out of that slave girl. And then how much more that night in the prison, probably, he might say, the best night of his life, when God moved in such a mighty way and the Philippian jailer was saved. What a sweet remembrance. And every time he thinks about them, prayer just goes up and he thanks God, every time he remembers them. Memories should lead us to prayer and to thanksgiving.

3. Consistency

 Thirdly, we see consistency, or you could say constancy. Look at v.3 and 4, “I thank my God every time, I remember you. In all my prayers, for all of you, I always pray with joy.” There’s a kind of a piling up of the always here. He’s a regular, faithful prayer warrior. Now, wouldn't you say if you were challenged and felt comfortable to be open and honest, that this is the hardest part of prayer for you? To keep praying even when it seems that nothing’s happening? To be faithful and to continue praying, even though it seems that very little is coming back on the invested time. For me it is. I'm sharing very openly with you. It’s hard for me to imitate Paul in this but I want to. And I want to grow, and I want to be constant and consistent. Like George Mueller for example, that prayed for over 50 years for the salvation of a family member. For 50 years, never gave up, just kept praying, kept praying, kept trusting. And in the end, after he was dead, the prayer was answered.

 God’s so faithful. And you know it’s interesting, what Mueller said about this constancy in prayer. He said “Satan will not mind how we labor in prayer for a few days, weeks, or even months, if he can at last discourage us so that we cease praying as if it were of no use.” He'll tolerate your prayers for a few days or a few weeks or months but in the end he wants you to stop praying. And he will labor to convince you that prayer is of no use.

 But the bigger mystery comes from God’s side. Why does he make us wait so long? Why not answer our prayers, especially if they are very much in line with his will? This is a great mystery, isn't it? Andrew Murray talks about this mystery. He says, “Of all the mysteries of the prayer world, the need of persevering prayer is one of the greatest. That the Lord, who is so loving and longing to bless should have to be asked time after time, sometimes year after year before the answer comes, we cannot easily understand. It is also one of the greatest practical difficulties in the exercise of believing prayer when after persevering, pleading, our prayer remains unanswered, it is often easiest for our lazy flesh and it has all the appearance of pious submission to think that we must now cease praying because God may have his secret reason for withholding his answer to our request. It is by faith alone that this difficulty is overcome.”

It’s a mystery, isn't it? Why does God make us wait so long? The psalmists wrestle with this, don't they? “Why are you so silent, God?” But he wants us to grow in prayer. And so, Paul gives us an example here of consistency or constancy in prayer.

 4. Joyful

 Fourth, we also see joy. “In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy.” This may be a second big challenge to you in your prayer life. Do you really enjoy your prayer life? Do you pray with joy? Are these sacrifices a delight or a burden like it says in Malachi, “What a burden! And you sniff at it.” “Everyday we’ve got to take up this prayer list.” It can be that way, and we need to recognize that that’s not in God’s will for us. He wants us to pray with joy, a sense of confidence that our prayers are actually part of God’s sovereign plan for the working out of his purposes in the world. That our prayers are triumphant, that good things are coming as a result of prayer.

Prayer was, I think, Paul’s language of joy. Whenever he felt joy, he wanted to pray, and whenever he lacked joy he prayed the more. He always prayed with joy, and why? Because of what God was doing in the lives of the Philippians.

 5. Reasoning

 That looks at my fifth reason here, there are reasons in his prayer. It’s a reasoning prayer life, a reasonable prayer life. He gives two of the reasons here, “because of your partnership in the gospel”, a very important word, and we will talk about it in a moment. “your partnership in the gospel, from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” But what I'm getting at here is that he has reasons for joy, and reasons for prayer.

You know, it’s actually easy to be joyful if you don't really know what’s going on. That’s called ignorant joy. In one sense it’s a good thing that children can play in concentration camps and they don't really know what’s going on in their lives. They can do that, and I'm glad that they're free from the burdens of knowing how severe the circumstances are. But that’s not the kind of joy that Paul has here. He’s looked at everything square in the face: all the obstacles, his imprisonment, the enemies of the Gospel, the Judaizers. He’s looked at all of the opponents, and he prays with joy because he knows that God is more powerful than all of those things. There’s a reason behind his joy and behind his prayer, it’s a reasonable prayer life. Now, let’s look at those two reasons.

 6. Fellowship

Sixth, fellowship. He has a reason for joyful prayer because of this concept of fellowship, or partnership. In v.5, “because of your partnership in the gospel, from the first day until now” And then again, you see it in v.7, “for whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share, you are partakers with me in God’s grace.” Paul prays for them out of this concept of partnership, out of this idea of fellowship.

The word is Koinonia. You've probably heard it before. And it’s a very significant word. Ancient Greek society had a sense, both of the individual and their rights and privileges, and of the collective community and society. There were some things belonging to the individual and some things that were held in common. Even land would be held in common, and those common things were called koinos, from which we get Koinonia. The Greek language that those of you who are in Seminary are studying is called Koine Greek, it means “the common tongue” that everyone spoke. It was what was shared together. And we have the same concept up in New England, there are areas called the common. Boston Common, in Lexington, that’s where the first shots were fired in the revolution in the common area. It’s the idea of something that everyone kind of shares and holds together, something in common. And Paul talks about this in Philippians 2:1, he says, “If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship... [That’s the same word, “Koinonia”] fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose.”

Unity with Christ is unity with his people

So what he’s saying, and in Paul’s way of thinking, when you come to faith in Christ you become united with Christ, and share things with him. You share things together. You share his suffering and you share his glory. You share his way of thinking and you share the outcome of that way of thinking. You share his plans and his work and all of the fruits that come from that at the end. You're partakers, or sharers together with Christ. You're part of his body, sharing things together. Saul of Tarsus got a lesson about that, didn't he? Remember the persecutor of the church on the road to Damascus? And the risen Lord, glorious, knocks him to the ground and says, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” In essence he was saying, “These people are in fellowship with me, they're a part of my body. You're attacking me.”

So he had an intense sense of sharing with Christ, and he loved it. It became the whole purpose of his life as we'll see in chapter three where he says, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship, [the Koinonia, the fellowship] of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death and so somehow to obtain to the resurrection from the dead.” There’s a sharing together with Christ. And this got very practically reflected in the New Testament when, after they came to faith in Christ, they became sharers of all things together. Nobody considered that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. And so he’s talking about partnership and that they shared their money. The Philippians shared their material possessions with Paul so that he could eat and continue in his ministry. They became tangible supporters of his by sending money; they had partnership in the gospel.

The ultimate goal of this fellowship is that we “participate in the divine nature,” isn't that wonderful? 2 Peter 1:4. The goal is that we be sharers together with God. You read in 1 John1:3, our fellowship is with God and with one another through Jesus Christ. It’s a delightful thing. And so Paul thinks of his prayer life as an outworking of this fellowship. He’s sharing together in what God is doing in their lives by praying for them. And they are sharing together in what Paul is doing by sending money. There’s a sharing together, a Koinonia.

 7. Confidence

Seventh, we see also confidence. “Being confident of this”, v.6, “That he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” I could have preached the whole sermon just on this one verse, but I want to see it in this context of Paul’s prayer life. Paul’s prayer life is fueled by a confidence in the sovereignty of God in salvation. Isn't that wonderful? We are confident that God is sovereign over salvation. As a matter of fact, if God is not sovereign in the matter you're praying about, why pray to him about it? Why bring it to God if he can't do anything about it? But he can. And so we bring to him the salvation of our loved ones, of our children, of our parents, of our friends, co-workers. We bring it to him again and again, and we should. We pray that God’s work would be done in their lives because we consider God sovereign in that matter. But we don't just stop when they have come to faith in Christ, no, then we really roll up our sleeves and say, “Oh Lord, perfect them now. Bring them on to completion to the day of Christ Jesus. Keep working out your plan in their lives all the more.”

Hebrews 12:2 says that Christ is the one we should “fix our eyes on, [he who is] “the author and the perfecter of our faith.” He wrote your faith’s first word and he will write its final chapter, too. And he’s not going to put his pen down till the story’s finished. Isn't that delightful? He is the author of your faith and he will finish that story. He’s powerful enough to do it. Do you realize that it is he who began the good work in you; you didn't begin it in yourself? Yes, you must “…work out your salvation with fear and trembling, [but] it is God who works that in you, to will and to act according to his good purpose.”(2:13)

Concerning fruit or money?

And so he is praying with confidence in God’s sovereignty in all areas. Some commentators that I've studied say that really, there’s a localized focus here, just on the money gift and in effect he’s saying, “He who moved you to give me some money will move you to keep giving me more money.” Do you really think that’s what Paul’s saying here? I don't think so because in chapter four he says, “Not that I'm looking for a gift but I'm looking for what may be credited into your account.” (v.17) He is saying, “I have everything I need but I'm delighted for your sake that you are sharing this money because it shows you're not idolatress and money grubbing and so concerned about the things of the world. You're releasing it to God and it shows that God’s doing good work in your lives.”

 So he’s not concerned about that, and even more, the text says, “He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until-” when? “the day of Christ Jesus.” Paul’s not going to need money that long. His need for money is long gone. You don't need to send money to Paul. He’s finished now with that. He doesn't need it anymore. 

But are the Philippians done being saved? No, they're not. And you know how I know? They don't have their resurrection bodies yet. They're not glorified yet. They're waiting in heaven, waiting for us and we'll be waiting for the next generation if the Lord tarries. We'll be waiting until we can all be resurrected into Christ’s glorious body. We will talk about that in Philippians 3.And so he’s going to keep working in you until the day of Christ Jesus, finishing that salvation work. And that confidence just moves Paul to pray. 

Some people say a strong confidence in sovereignty moves you to do nothing. I think quite the opposite. It moves me to get on the winning team, to jump on the bandwagon, to say, “This is a winning team. We're going to succeed.” And so, to pray for what God is doing in their lives and to keep praying.

 8. Affection

And then finally, we see affection in v. 7 and 8. “It is right for me to feel this way about all of you since I have you in my heart. For whether I am in chains defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God’s grace with me. God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.” There’s such a tenderness here, isn't there?

We're going to see throughout the letter Paul is a very encouraging man to these people. He says in 2:12 “…as you have always obeyed, even in my absence…” continue to obey. He’s very encouraging to them because he loves them. And his prayer life is really an outworking of his love for them. I really believe that prayer is a barometer of love. The more you love, the more you're going to pray. And so we need to increase our love, so that our love may abound more and more. We need that. We'll get to that, God-willing, next week.

Next week we're going to see the content of Paul’s prayer life in verses 9 through 11a, and then ultimately the goal of Paul’s prayer life, the glory and praise of God. We'll see that next time.

Let’s say a word about application.

First of all, I want you to have absolute confidence in God’s sovereignty in your own salvation. Don't look to yourself to save yourself. Don't look to yourself to run the Christian life. Realize that he who began a good work in you will not stop until it’s finished. And so be confident and that confidence will give you energy to fight the devil, energy to say no to besetting sins, energy to pray, energy to evangelize, confidence that God is going to win and to work out all of his purposes. It gives you great drive for internal perfection, not that we ever attain that in this world, but growth and holiness, and external world evangelization.

Secondly, pray like Paul. Pray like Paul. Take the list of these characteristics and look over and say, “Do I pray like this? Am I a consistent prayer warrior? Do I pray with thankfulness and with joy?” And if not, ask God to work it in you. Imitate Paul in his prayer life.

And thirdly, I'm going to actually talk about money. I don't do that very often and I always say, “I only do it if it’s in the text.” Well, it’s in the text, and I couldn't escape it this time. The partnership was financial; they shared together (4:14-19). I want you, under the leadership of the Spirit, to analyze your giving. I want you to look at how you're giving financially. Not just to this church, but to God’s work around the world. Who are you sharing together with? Who are you partners with in the work of the ministry? And are you giving sacrificially?

We're at present more than $50,000 behind our budget. People say, “We're frequently behind.” And that’s true, but is that the way it should be? I think we should be more faithful and more consistent in our giving. It’s a discipline every week to set aside, on the first day of the week, the ties and offerings for the Lord. I think we need to be faithful in this. We need to see that number shrink from $50,000 plus, down. But not just the giving to this church, but to all of God’s work around the world. There are other people that are doing work around the world, serving him faithfully. Let’s be partners and sharers together with them in their ministry.

We begin this morning a new study in the book of Philippians, and this is one of my favorite books in the scriptures. There are so many moments and passages in Philippians that have encouraged me in my faith and helped me, and I just desire to give that to you if I can with God's help. I want to share with you the way that Philippians has encouraged me in my journey- and I really could say journeys, because in Philippians we're going to see two great and majestic journeys that God has called us to do. I've mentioned these two journeys before, but I got the understanding from Philippians, so now we're going back to the root of where it came from to begin with.

Back in 1986, I was on a missionary trip, my first missionary trip to Kenya. And we finished ministering in one locality and we were starting to travel to the next town where we were going to eat a meal and spend the night. And the pastor that we were traveling with, a wonderful man named Moses Jaconi, had only been that way that we were traveling one other time. But that was alright, we trusted his leadership and we were fine with it. We started out and it was late afternoon when we began. And as we were walking, we're talking- just fellowshipping together, enjoying the time, I noticed that the sun was getting lower and lower. And I looked around and I didn't see anything, really. No towns, nothing. Just African countryside. And we just kept talking. I didn't want to show unbelief by asking, “Where are we?” and “Are we okay?” We just kept walking, and sure enough the sun got orange, and then dipped down below the horizon. And then it became kind of a rich purple, and we kept talking and walking, and pretty soon it was pitch black. And I was in the middle of an African forest, with two people that I'd only met a short time before that. And I thought, “If my mother could see me now.”  'Cause I was hearing sounds I'd never heard before, the nocturnal animals of Africa coming out, and I didn't know where we were going. And little did I know that we would arrive there after two in the morning, and that we would walk 20 miles that late afternoon, evening, and early morning. 20 miles. I wished he told me at the beginning how long that journey would be, but I wonder if I really would've made it, if I would have even begun.

And so also, is the Christian life. It's a journey in which we really don't know where we're going. We’ve never been that way before. It's long, it takes endurance, we have to trust our guide. There are some scary moments in there along the way, moments in which we really don't know what's around the next bend, and frankly can't even see the next bend. But God has called us to a journey, and in the book of Philippians I see this very clearly. God has called us really to two journeys, an internal journey of holiness, of growth and sanctification. Of becoming more and more like Jesus Christ, in our thoughts, in our attitudes, in our actions, in the way we live our life. to be conformed to his image more and more, day by day. That is an internal journey of immense proportions. Really infinite proportions- that we would be perfect as Christ is perfect, and then externally, that the word of the gospel might make its progress around the world. Paul likens it to running a race. That he counted his life worth nothing to him if only that he might finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus had given Him, the task of testifying to the Gospel of God's grace. You see those two journeys, but the book of Philippians really is an epistle of joy. Just as much as Paul lays out these journeys, he also wants us to be joyful in the journeys. And he wants, in the words of Philippians, to give us everything we need to rejoice in the Lord always, no matter what's going on, and so, he writes.

Context:  Paul in Chains and the Response of the Philippian Church

Now, the circumstances. What we're going to do this morning is we're just going to look at the big picture, look at the forest before we look in our usual way at the trees, the details, (and the details are glorious,) but let's look at the big picture here in the book of Philippians. And I want to draw out for you eight great themes that I find in this book. And we're going to take them in the order that we find them primarily taught in each passage. But understand first, the context.

 What happened was the Apostle Paul was in prison again, he was in prison for preaching the Gospel. He was in chains. The Philippian church that he had planted, (and we're going to talk more about that in the future, the circumstances of his planting that church) this was a church that was precious to him, near and dear to his heart. He had great memories of his experiences in Philippi, and of the significant events that happened there. He really loved these people, he loved them much. They were dear to him. And I'm sure that they were anxious about him, they were concerned because they heard he was in prison again, and might die actually. That he was facing the possibility of leaving this world, that he might be executed for his faith in Christ.

Epaphroditus

They had sent him a man named Epaphroditus, and Epaphroditus had brought some money. Because back then if you didn't have external means of support in prison, you starved. You had no way to provide for yourself. Now, they might give you a bowl of minimal nutrition but for the most part, to thrive and to survive in prison, you need an external support system, people who were courageous enough to come and bring you what you needed.

Epaphroditus had done that. He risked his life for the cause of the gospel, says Paul, in Philippians 2. And brought this money and Paul has received this money with incredible joy. But I'm telling you that Paul's way of thinking, it’s so different from ours. It's not the money that he's rejoicing over, it's what it says about the Philippians and their journey. And he's delighted about that, but he's also heard from Epaphroditus that the Philippians are in persecution themselves, they're going through a trial, they're going through suffering. He wants to write back to them.

 Paul’s Immense Gratitude and Joy

Therefore, the Epistle to the Philippians is, I think, history's greatest thank you letter. Whenever you receive a gift, it's good manners to write a thank you letter and to put down in pen your gratitude and just to say thank you, because it's just right to say thanks for good things that are done for us. And as a matter of fact, it's really right to the core theologically because in Romans Chapter 1, the apostle Paul criticizes the pagans who are idolatrous because they did not glorify God nor give thanks to him. Therefore, it's right for us to just have a heart of thanksgiving. And so Paul's writing a thank you letter. But you see, Paul never does things halfway. He wants to pour out truth into them because he loves them. And therefore, he wants them to make progress in their journeys. He wants them to have joy in the journey. He's going to be encouraging them throughout these four chapters. He's going to be building them up in their faith. He wants them to suffer for the gospel, but to do it joyfully. He wants them to be persecuted, go through the persecution joyfully that they might bear good fruit for Christ. And he also wants them to make progress in their own personal spiritual lives joyfully. And so again and again, he's going to be mentioning joy. Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again, rejoice.

That's a brief overview and certainly we're going to, if God gives us time, dig deeper into each of these aspects. But let's look at some of these major themes in the letter to the Philippians.

Look at the first one, which is predominant in the first chapter, and that is the inevitability and immense worth of suffering for Christ. The inevitability and immense worth of suffering for Christ. Now, Paul talks about his sufferings. Now, I've been around people that talk about their sufferings, and I think that their motives may be different than Paul's. Paul is not talking about his suffering so that he can have a pity party, far from it actually. He's talking about his suffering so that he can teach them how to suffer what they're going through. He wants them to know the same kind of sustaining joy that he has in his sufferings, and how vital is that? He is really, (and we're going to see this later, even this morning,) he presents himself as a role model and says, “Follow me, follow in my pattern and my steps. Imitate me.” We'll talk about that more in a moment. But he's talking about his sufferings.

He says, look at chapter 1:12-14. He says, “Now I want you to know brothers that what has happened to me has really served to advance the Gospel. As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and everyone else that I'm in chains for Christ. Because of my chains, most of the brothers in the Lord have been encouraged to speak the word of God more courageously and fearlessly.” He's speaking there about his sufferings. And he's speaking also about the blessings and the benefits that are coming already because he's in prison, because he's got chains on him. There are great benefits, and we're going to talk more about that.

 Paul’s Strange Enemies

But he's also interestingly philosophical about a certain group of people who are among the strangest people you're going to meet in the Bible. In Philippians 1:15-18, it is those who are preaching the Gospel, the true Gospel, from false motives, trying to get Paul in trouble. Now that's odd, isn't it? There are false teachers throughout the scriptures and there are people who want to attack and persecute, but what an odd way to persecute.  “I'm going to preach the true Gospel and I'm going to stir up trouble for Paul while he's in prison.” Paul says, “You know, what does it matter? Does it really make a difference if trouble is caused for me?” What an attitude. He doesn't care what happens to him, he already told us that in Acts 20, “I consider my life worth nothing to me.” He's willing to say, “It doesn't make a difference to me, just as long as they're preaching the true Gospel. If they're preaching the true Gospel, then I don't really care what their motives are.” And so, he's giving them a sense of his attitude toward suffering. The inevitability and the immense worth of it. And why is he doing that?

 Well, look at the end of Chapter 1:27-30. He says, “Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the Gospel of Christ. Then whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in one spirit, contending as one man for the cause of the Gospel without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you. This is a sign to them that they will be destroyed and you will be saved, and that by God. For it has been granted to you, on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him but also to suffer for him.” Since you're going through the same struggle you saw I had and now hear that I still have.” Do you see there the inevitability of suffering?

 If you're going to make progress in these two journeys, the internal journey of holiness and the external journey of worldwide evangelization, you can't make progress without suffering. It's just impossible. He says, “It's been granted to you, the Lord has given you a gift, and the gift is suffering and also faith to believe on Christ and also to suffer for him.” It's inevitable, you're going to suffer, there's no other way to avoid it. Christ himself suffered, he left his glorious throne, (Philippians 2), and came down to earth and took on a human body and became a servant and suffered, even to the point of dying on the cross. The inevitability of suffering.

Christ’s Powerful Enemies

And why inevitable? Because Christ has enemies in this world, powerful enemies. They're standing firm against the Philippians, at the end of chapter one, as we've seen. “They are enemies of the cross,” he calls them in Philippians 3. They hate Christ and they oppose him and they're going to make trouble for any that would seek to make progress in these two journeys. They're going to set up around the Christians a world system to entice them into sin so that they cannot make progress in holiness. And when they get bold and start to preach the gospel, well then, these enemies will be persecutors. And they will attack, and they will beat you, and throw you in prison. And if you're not willing to suffer, you cannot make progress. Suffering, therefore, is inevitable in the Christian life. But suffering is also beneficial.

God is Strategic in Our Suffering

We're going to talk more in the future on God's strategy for reaching the Gentiles, but His strategy for Paul was simple: “Paul, I'm going to put you in prison and I'm going to chain you up to four Praetorian guards a day. And you're going to get four hours with each one, Paul. And you're going to have the opportunity to preach the gospel. Only four hours now. Make the most of it.” Therefore Paul is going to say, “I rejoice in my sufferings.” Why? Because I cannot lead Praetorian guards to faith in Christ if I act like every other prisoner they've ever seen. There has to be something special, something different in me or else I cannot lead anyone to Christ. Suffering's inevitable. But how do you carry yourself in the suffering, is it with joy? Or are you suffering like any other Pagan would? That's the issue. Therefore, suffering is not only inevitable, it is beneficial.

I've thought much recently about why God left me on earth after I came to faith in Christ. Why did you leave me here, Lord? Why these journeys? Why not just take us to heaven? Wouldn't that be wonderful if God just committed the ministry of reconciliation to angels and then as soon as you come to faith in Christ, you're gone? You don't have to study for that final exam you're worried about. You don't have to face that financial crisis anymore. You're just gone. But it is not better because God didn't will it that way. Rather He wanted us to struggle and to suffer in this world that we would grow. And I believe that the answer is in Philippians three, that we would be conformed somehow to Christ in His sufferings and become like Him in His death, to imitate Him as He carries His cross and we also carry ours. Suffering is beneficial and suffering is inevitable.

Secondly, the purpose of earthly life and the superiority of heavenly life. We see this in Philippians 1:20-26. “I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now, as always, Christ will be exalted in my body whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean,” listen carefully, “fruitful labor for me.” “Fruitful labor for me, yet what shall I choose? I do not know. I am torn between the two. I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far. But it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith so that through my being with you again, your joy in Christ Jesus will overflow on account of me.”

What is the purpose of our earthly life? Well, I think Paul said it so plainly in Philippians 1:21, “For me, to live is Christ.” Christ was the purpose of his earthly life. What does that mean? To live like Christ. To develop the mind of Christ. To think like Christ did about his earthly life. To learn how to suffer like Christ did. And to lay my life down for Christ and for his people.

 And Paul's wrestling with that, isn't he? He said, “Here I am in prison and I might die. And nobody's going to ask me what the outcome should be. I don't get to decide that. God will not ask me. He'll do what's best. And the Romans aren't going to ask me either. They'll do whatever they think is best. But if I could be asked and I could make the decision, what would I choose? Would I depart and be with Christ, which is better by far for me? Or would I stay and continue to suffer here on earth, which is better by far for you? Well, I think I actually would rather stay.” Now that's remarkable isn't it? He knows, at least through a glass darkly better than most people that ever lived, how much joy was waiting for him in face to face fellowship with Christ, but he said, not yet. Not yet. I'd rather stay here for your benefit. And how much like Christ is Paul here? How much like the one who left heaven and left the throne of glory and came down to this sin-cursed world, came down to suffering and rejection and death so that we might have eternal life? You see how it's conforming Paul to be like Jesus. And so therefore, that is the purpose of life, that we could be conformed to Christ and learn to lay down our lives for the advance of the gospel and to be like Him in our internal journey. But through it all, we start to recognize how much superiority there is in the heavenly life.

 The more we go on, the more we want to be with Jesus. He said it's better by far that I get to see Christ. For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. What kind of gain? More Christ. That I get to not just see Him through a glass darkly anymore. I don't just get to live on the deposit, the down payment of the indwelling Spirit, I get God face to face. And how much better is that? And the sweetness of the superiority the heavenly life, gives you joy no matter what you're going through on earth. The joy of heaven filling you no matter what kind of suffering you're going through now. The superiority. There's a purpose to staying on this earth and that is conformity to Christ in His death for the benefit of others and also that you would be transformed to be like Jesus. And there is a superiority to what's waiting for you in heaven.

 Thirdly, the role of the united church. The advance of the Gospel cannot be done in isolation and it cannot be done by a divided church. Now, what was going on with these dear Philippians? The Philippians were, I think, just by reading the Epistles of Paul, among Paul's favorite people, he really loved them. He has a great deal of tenderness for them as we're going to make clear in upcoming weeks, as God gives us the opportunity. He really loved these people but they had a problem. The problem was that they had divisions and arguments and worldly ambitions. They were behaving like us. They were behaving like regular people. They had problems. There were two ladies in the church named Euodia and Syntyche. They're both in Heaven, their names are written in The Book of Life. Isn't that wonderful? But they just didn't like each other. They didn't get along. And so, he says in Chapter 4:2, “I plead with the Euodia and I plead with Syntyche to get along with each other. To agree with each other in the Lord.” Help these women to get along.

But then, even more is the hint at the end of Chapter one, and then the whole beautiful first section of Chapter two, that this was a divided church. He says, “You must be standing firm in one spirit. Contending as one man for the cause of the Gospel.” Not in this divided way. And then in Chapter 2:1-4, he says, “Do nothing- “ in verse three, actually, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interest but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus who left Heaven above as a humble servant and made himself nothing.” Why is this so vital? Because the Gospel cannot make progress if the Church isn't united. If we're not one. If we're bickering and arguing, we cannot make progress.

 And so he says in Philippians 2:14, “Do everything without complaining and arguing”. There must be unity. Therefore, he talks much about the fellowship of the Gospel. In Chapter 1:5, he talks about this, the koinonia, the fellowship, their partnership in the Gospel from the first day until now. Chapter 1:7 he says, “Whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the Gospel, all of you share in God's grace with me.” In effect, this apostle is saying, “I can't make it without you. Thank you for the money, but even more thank you for your prayers on my behalf. Thank you for standing firm with me, side by side in the cause of the Gospel. Thank you. Why? Because I can't make it without you. We can't do it alone.” And so you have two great journeys in front of you. The internal journey of holiness to be like Christ. The external journey of worldwide evangelization.

 You cannot make progress alone. You've got to have the help from your brothers and sisters in Christ. But that help will not be coming the way it needs to if there's this selfish ambition, worldly factions and divisions and problems.

The fourth great theme we see is the perfect servant-hood of Jesus Christ. It has a purpose in the letter to support the very point we just made. In other words, don't be selfish and push your own agenda forward, because Jesus didn't do that. It's not his way. He sets Christ up as an example, but really it's more than just a supporting example. It is the fourth great theme. Look at verse five of Chapter two, “Your attitude,” he says, “should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, who being in very nature of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped.” We're going to talk much about that phrase. I've learned a lot about it. “...something to be grasped, but made himself nothing. Taking the very nature of a servant. Being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross. Therefore... “

That may be one of the most important 'therefores' in the Bible. Because it shows why God will exalt somebody. “Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name. That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in Heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.” Christ's humility in servant-hood will conquer the world. He will be King of Kings. He will be Lord of lords and everyone will acknowledge that at the end of the world, because of his humble servant-hood.”

The Nations Will Bow

God has already exalted him to the highest place. It's just the nations don't know it yet. They haven't seen it yet but they will some day. Hopefully, they will see it by faith, now, while there's still time. And they will bow their necks to His yoke and take His yoke upon them and learn from him because he is gentle and humble in heart. He is their King. But someday, whether they do it by faith now or by sight later, they will bow their knee before the kingship of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ breaks the world's pattern. The world is ambitious. The world is selfish. Climbing ever higher, always higher. Making the most for ourselves of every opportunity. Climbing the ladder of success. Jesus was not going up, up, up. He was always going the opposite direction. Down, down, down. Always more humble, always lower, even to the point of death on a cross. And he's calling us to follow him. Calling us to follow him. And so Christ, the death on the cross will captivate the hearts of believers all over the world. It is the theological center of this letter and it is the Gospel that we preached. It is also a great role model for us isn't it?

 Jesus is the greatest role model that ever lived. And that's the fifth theme. That we need role models in these two journeys. Essential in the journey to inward perfection in Christ and to the completion of the Great Commission. We need role models. We need men and women who will stand up and say to men and to women, “Follow me as I follow Christ.” We need older men to stand up for the younger men and say, “Follow me, imitate me, be like me as I am following Christ.” We need older women, according to Titus two, to do the same for the younger women. We need the role models. We need the mentors. And this is a great weakness of the American church I think. A great weakness.

 The central role model in the Christian Life is Jesus Christ. Philippians 2:5, “Your attitude, [your mind] should be that of Christ Jesus.” Imitate him. Jesus didn't just appear on Earth on Good Friday, die that afternoon, and then rise on the third day as an atonement for our sins. That wasn't it. He lived a whole life. And why? To be our role model. To show us how it's done. He is the first and greatest role model, but Paul also holds up Timothy and Epaphroditus as role models. Look at Chapter 2:21-22. Speaking of Timothy, he says “Everyone looks out for his own interests not those of Jesus Christ, but you know that Timothy has proved himself because as a son with his father he has served with me in the work of the gospel.” He holds Timothy up as an example, a role model of selfless dedication to the gospel. But not just Timothy but their own Epaphroditus. He holds him up also. In Chapter 2:29-30, “Welcome Epaphroditus in the Lord with great joy and honor men like him because he almost died for the work of Christ risking his life to make up the help that you could not give me.”

 Timothy and Epaphroditus are role models. Paul, however, emphasizes most strongly his own role as a role model in their lives look at Chapter 3:17, “Join with others in following my example brothers and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you.” That's a vital verse and we're going to talk more about it if God gives us opportunity. But what is he saying? Live after a pattern of life the way we showed you to. Now that's remarkable isn't it? He communicated not just a body of teachings and of doctrines but a lifestyle called Christianity. Oh, how we lack this these days. How weak we are at discipleship. Look again at Chapter 4:9, one of my favorite verses in terms of the boldness and the courage of Paul. I love this. Philippians 4:9, he says, “Whatever you have learned, or received, or heard from me,” that's a body of doctrines, things that could be taught in this style by teaching, “Whatever you've learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me,” That's role modeling, folks. That's lifestyle. “Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me,” that's body of teachings, “...or seen in me, put it into practice- and the God of Peace will be with you.”

 Do you have the courage to say that to a younger Christian? To say, “Follow me as I follow Christ. Imitate me in my prayer life. Imitate me in the way I handle money. Imitate me in the way I use my time. Imitate me in the way that I'm raising my family, or the way I treat my spouse. Imitate me in the way I minister at church. Imitate me in evangelism. Follow me as I follow Christ.” Do you have the courage to do that? You say, “Well my life isn't up to that level.” Well, it's time. We need role models, those that will step forward and say, “Follow me as I follow Christ.” It's one of the major themes of the book of Philippians.

Number six. Salvation must be worked out through great effort and struggle, but absolute perfection is guaranteed the true believer in Christ. Isn't that wonderful? The moment you come to faith in Christ, God gives you a righteousness from Christ that is by faith, not by the law. At that moment you become as perfect as Christ is perfect in God's sight. He sees you positionally in Christ. You are seen to be perfect. It is the gift of righteousness. Just as a gift, nothing you could earn. Look at Chapter 3:9, “Not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ. The righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.” It's a gift. The moment that you trust Christ, that you hear the gospel, and that you trust him, at that moment a gift of righteousness is imputed, or credited, to your account. And from then on God sees you as perfectly righteous as Christ is righteous. A robe of righteousness he puts on you. Is that the end of Salvation? No. That's the beginning of it.

Press On Until You are Perfect, in Actuality

Now he calls on you to live up to the calling you've received: to live out in actuality the way you think, the way you live, the way you spend your time and effort and money and resources and all that. The way you live to imitate Christ in your everyday life. He calls on you to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. He calls on you to run a race with endurance, to press on until you are perfect. And we're not perfect yet. Look at verse 12 of Chapter three, “Not that I've already obtained all this or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.” Jesus took hold of me for a purpose and that purpose is that I would be perfect in actuality. That I would think perfectly. That I would love perfectly. That I would hate wickedness perfectly. That I would in every way, in body, soul, and spirit be perfect as Christ is perfect.

 Am I there yet? I can tell you I'm not. Just ask anybody who knows me well. I won't embarrass her who knows me best, but I have a long way to go. I'm not perfect yet and neither are any of you. I'm not saying that because I've seen things in you. That's not it. I'm saying that because you're sitting listening to me instead of worshipping God face to face. You're not finished with your journey yet. You're not perfect yet. And so therefore, you must also press on in your Christian life. You must make progress until the end. But the beautiful thing is, it's guaranteed. Isn't that wonderful? “He who began a good work in you will most certainly carry it on to completion, [to perfection] until the day of Christ Jesus.” He's going to perfect in you what he's begun. Isn't that wonderful? And that's another theme.

 The seventh great theme is in chapter 3:7-16. The one single burning passion of Paul's life should be also yours. And that is to know Christ. It is eternal life to know God and to know Jesus Christ. To know him should be the treasure of your life. It should be the pearl of great price. It should be the one thing you want more than anything else. It's the one thing that Paul wanted. That I might know him. That I might know him in His sufferings, in his death. That I might know him also in his resurrection power. That I might know him on earth and that I might know him in heaven. I want to know Christ. I want to share with him everything that he shared. That is the passion of my life. And if you're a Christian, it should be the passion of your life too. Don't let idolatry push Christ out of his rightful place in your life, the center of your life, a passion to know Christ. God willing we'll have a chance to preach on it more.

 And then the eighth and final theme, the secret of Christian contentment, of learning how to be content no matter what's happening to you in your life. Have you achieved that yet? Are you content all the time? Do you never complain but always trust and sing and praise and are joyful no matter what your external circumstances? If not, then Philippians 4 has something to say to you. Paul says, “I've learned how to do this. It's not something that came with the original package of justification. I've had to learn this,” says Paul. “And I have in fact learned the secret of being content in any and every situation.” The rare jewel of Christian contentment, Jeremiah Burrows called it. “I've learned it and I want to give it to you,” says the apostle Paul. Well, I want to receive it. I really would love that. To learn the secret of being content no matter what happens, no matter what's going on in my life; financially, physically, relationally, to be content all the time. That is the secret of Chapter four and I look forward to talking more about it.

 We've looked this morning at eight major themes. Just lightly touched on them. When put together they talk about, two amazing journeys, infinite journeys, really. Impossible journeys apart from God. The internal journey that we would be conformed in perfection internally and externally to Christ, to be just like him. And the external journey of worldwide evangelization that others might also be conformed to Christ. These two things done for the glory of God.

Is This Your Hope?

My question this morning is, do you know Him? Do you know Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior? Are you trusting in his death on the cross as a payment for the sins that you have committed? Are you trusting in his robe of righteousness to cover you on judgment day? Is this your hope? And if not, won't you come and talk to me after the service? Won't you come and say, “I'm not a Christian. I haven't come to faith in Christ yet but I want to know Him and I want to know Him now. I want to know Him today.” And if you've already come to faith in Christ, make Christ the center of your life, the burning passion of your life, to know Him as Paul wanted to know Him.

Today we are going to finish this phase of preaching in Matthew.  It's been a delightful time as we've studied and looked in the Gospel of Matthew 13. We've seen again and again the unifying theme is the kingdom of heaven, and specifically the King of the Kingdom of Heaven, and that is Jesus Christ, from the genealogy right at the beginning of Matthew 1, up until the end of chapter 13. We've seen much evidence that Christ is not only the Son of Man, but also Son of God, that He is God in the flesh.  We’ve seen that His works and His words are unlike any that's ever lived, and that the evidence for Him, being the king of the kingdom of heaven is sufficient.  It is sufficient so that we will entrust our lives to Him; that we will in fact come to Him and take His yoke upon us and learn from Him because He is gentle and humble in heart, and that we can yield our stubborn, rebellious necks to His yoke. We can submit to His kingship; we can follow Him and His yoke because it is easy, and his burden is light. He will lead us into the visible face-to-face presence of God and the perfected Kingdom of Heaven. I'm yearning for that. We've seen that, especially in this chapter 13, with the parables one after the other.

On a daily basis, I gather my family around something we call a family altar, and we read through books of the Bible as a family. The same thing I do here on Sunday morning is go verse by verse through books of the Bible. We go a little faster in the family, but that's alright. We're excited to learn whatever God would have for us. We took a poll with our kids about the next book after we finished the book of Hebrews, and they wanted to do two of them.   The third is willing, and we're probably going to go to the other book that she wanted, the Book of Isaiah. But two of them wanted the Book of Revelation. I quailed and tremble and I said, "I don't understand that book, but I can teach you it at home long before I'll preach it to you. I will work on it at home and try to learn and try to understand, and that's what we're doing; we're moving through the Book of Revelation. 

Revelation begins right at the start by saying, "The purpose of the book is that it is a book of Revelation. The word “revelation” is the English form of the Greek Word “apokalupsis”, an unveiling, a removal of a veil that we might pull back the veil which has veiled our sight and see what's behind it, what's truly there. But the Book of Revelation is not so much a revelation of the future as most people think it to be. It is not so much a revelation of heaven although there is so much of that.  Not so much a revelation of all the worship, and the living creatures and the angels, all veiled in their sight, not so much a vision or a revelation of heaven, and not so much a revelation of the destruction of Satan, and of the anti-Christ and all of their vile forces and their work in this world. It's not so much a revelation of the end of the world and of Judgment Day and of heaven and hell and the final states. It is all of these things, and I'm getting excited. I might as well just go ahead and preach in Revelation this morning, but I can't do it. But it is all of these things, but it is so much infinitely more because Revelation 1:1, says "The Revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave His servants.” It's an unveiling of Christ. More than all of the other things."

Why did Jesus Christ need to be unveiled? What of him is hidden from our sight? We don't understand when every Christmas we sing the Wesley’s hymn, “Hark the Herald Angels Sing”, and in that he writes, “Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see. Hail, the incarnate Deity.” Veiled in flesh. His flesh, his physical body in some way veils from our sight his true nature. He is veiled from us by His flesh.

Recently Steve & Vikki Cook wrote in a great song about this fathomless love. Speaking of the same thing, the song speaks of Christ, "Lord what moved your heart to love lowly man before any star could herald your praise. And why did you come abasing yourself veiled in a robe of frail human clay. Why would the adored become the despised to bear all the furious wrath that was mine?”  This veil of human clay the veil of Christ, His incarnation; that the eternal God the Creator of the ends of the earth should take on a frail human form, a baby in a manger, that he should grow up like other boys in a neighborhood ,that he should have a regular family, and a regular family life, and that he should at some point present himself to his neighbors as God incarnate.

That is a stumbling block that is difficult to accept. The veil of flesh makes it hard and only the eye of faith can see Christ for who he truly is. It is faith alone that pulls back the veil that unveils Christ and sees not just a man, a Jewish carpenter, a great moral teacher or somebody worth studying, about whom there's been so much misunderstanding and mythology. No, it doesn't see that, it sees the incarnate God. It sees God in the flesh, and in seeing that, it believes for eternal life. 

What did Christ give up when He came to this earth? What did He give up and what temporarily did He give up?  He gave up the outward display of his glory and of heavenly worship. Soon, if God wills, we'll have an opportunity to look at Philippians Chapter 2. There it describes what I consider to be an infinite journey, a journey from the height of glory from the throne of glory in the center of heaven, all the way down past incarnation, all the way down even more, to death on a cross, a bloody cross from a throne of glory to a bloody cross — now that's an infinite journey. It says that, “Jesus being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant being made in human likeness, and being found in appearance as a man.” He humbled himself and became obedient to death. Even death on a cross, and so here is Christ truly God, very God. A very God, begotten not made, this God, eternal God took on a human body, and He was worshipped constantly in Heaven, the glory of the pre-incarnate Christ. 

We get glimpses of it in the Old Testament.   For example, in Ezekiel Chapter 1, when Ezekiel had a vision, and he saw I believe the pre-incarnate Christ sitting on his throne. I think that Ezekiel 1, seems to me, stretches language almost to the breaking point, just like you get the sense in the Book of Revelation as well to try to explain what he saw. “I looked and I saw a windstorm coming out of the north. An immense cloud with flashing lightning and surrounded by brilliant light, the center of the fire looked like glowing metal, and in the fire was what looked like four living creatures. Fire moved back and forth among the creatures, it was bright, and lightning flashed out of it, the creatures sped back and forth like flashes of lightning, beside the creatures were crystallite wheels, intersecting wheels, Their rims were high and awesome, and all four rims were full of eyes all around spread out above the heads of the living creatures was what looked like an expanse sparkling like ice and awesome. When the creatures moved. I heard the sound of their wings like the roar of rushing waters, like the voice of the Almighty, like the tumult of an army. When they stood still, they lowered their wings, then there came a voice from above the expanse, over their heads as they stood with lowered wings above the expanse. High over their heads, was what looked like a throne of sapphire and high above on the throne was a figure like that of a man. I saw that from what appeared to be his waist up, he looked like glowing metal, as if full of fire and that from there down, he looked like fire and brilliant light surrounded him like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord, and when I saw it, I fell face down.” That was a vision, I believe, of the glory of the pre-incarnate Christ, but actually not really of the Glory; a vision of the likeness of the appearance of the glory, because Ezekiel couldn’t handle the full glory and God wanted him to survive. So, God gave him just an appearance of the likeness of the image of the glory, so that he could survive the encounter. This is the glory of Christ pre-incarnate.

The worship of Christ is also described in Isaiah 6 with the seraphim, each with six wings. With two wings they cover their faces. They covered their faces, before Christ. With two wings, they covered their feet, and with two wings they were flying and   calling to one another, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty. The whole earth is full of His glory.” The apostle John says this of Christ in the book of Revelation.   In John 12:41, it says, "Isaiah said this because he saw Jesus' glory and spoke about Him. This is the glory of Christ.”  Did he give it up? Yes, he gave it all up. All the outward visible display of glory and the perfect worship of spiritual beings in heaven He gave up. What an infinite journey that was for him. To give that up and t come down to earth as a missionary really, the greatest missionary journey ever, the pattern of all missionary journeys, and that is the incarnation of Jesus Christ. No one, no one in history had as much to lose as Jesus.

I read recently about David Livingston, one of my missionary heroes, one of the great men of God, a missionary from England in Africa. His was a great adventure, but an adventure for Christ and for the gospel, and he suffered greatly. There were lots of difficulties in his life because of his calling as a missionary. He was often asked about this sacrifice of his life. People would come and say, "Talk to us about the sacrifices that you've made." And this is what he said, “People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Can that be called sacrifice, which is simply paid back, as a small part of the great debt owing to our God, which we can never repay? Away with such a word. Away with such a view and such a thought. It is emphatically, no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger may make us pause, and cause the spirit to waver, and sink. But let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the glory, which shall hereafter be revealed in us and for us. I never made a sacrifice." Let me say that again, I never made a sacrifice. We ought not to talk, when we remember the great sacrifice which He made, who left His father's throne on high, to give Himself for us." David Livingstone. "I never made a sacrifice."

This was a free, willing, clear-headed choice on Christ's part. He was not compelled; he was not forced. Gladly, for the joy set before Him, He endured incarnation and all that it meant right up to the cross. Gladly and even more amazing that the adored would choose to become the despised. Jeremiah at one point said "Lord, you deceived me, you didn't tell me everything that was involved in the job description. I didn't know I'd be despised so much that I'd be hated and persecuted, so much." Said Jeremiah, "You deceived me.” What a shocking moment in the life of the prophet. God is not a deceiver.

But the Second Person of the trinity was in no way deceived about entering the Earth He knew. He knew very well what He would face. He knew the prophecies, that He would be despised and rejected, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering, that his own would not receive Him, but reject Him, that He would be handed over to be mocked and flogged and crucified. He knew all these things. He knew that his incarnation, itself would be dis-believed, that his mother would be dishonored, that He himself would be dishonored, He knew all these things. He knew that his person, would be rejected, and He knew that it would all end in being crushed at the cross. He knew that. And yet he did it anyway. Isn't that incredible? Clearly understanding and doing it anyway.

We see the veil of flesh. He was veiled in flesh, He took on a human body, the hidden glory of the incarnation. This is, I believe, the central stumbling block of our faith called Christianity.  He took on a human body that it might bleed and die on the cross as a sacrifice, and we have a hard time accepting this. The Jews of his day had a hard time accepting this. In John chapter 10, the great chapter in which he calls himself the Good Shepherd, the Jews don't understand, and Jesus says, "I and the Father are one, and again the Jews picked up stones to stone Him, but Jesus said to them. I have shown you many great miracles from the Father, for which of these are you stoning me? No, we are not stoning you for any of these, but for blasphemy. Because you a mere man, claim to be God.” That's a stumbling block. How can a mere man make that kind of claim? Don’t believe what the liberals and what other modern scholars tell you that Jesus never claimed to be God. Oh yes, He did. His own generation knew very well. He used all the language. “Before Abraham was born. I am.” He used the language of deity. He knew that He was God and He proclaimed himself to be God. They rejected it, and it's been rejected by great minds ever since, and by not so great minds.

Leo Tolstoy, the great writer, said, "I believe that Christ was a man like us. To look upon him as God would seem to me the greatest of sacrileges." Oh, I grieve. I hope he repented of that unbelief. He was a mere man claiming to be God. He had a physical body. He had eyes, he had a face, he had hands, he had hair. He had all of the physical trappings, and actually had them, not just merely appeared to have them. He truly did have them. He had a normal development, from infancy through boyhood, young manhood and then to full adulthood. Normal development. He had normal family relations with a mother and while he lived with his stepfather, not his true father, but with Joseph, and also with brothers and sisters that are listed in the passage we're reading.  He had normal physical issues, he got hungry and needed to eat, he got thirsty and needed to drink, he got tired and needed to sleep. He had physical limitations, He could only be one place at one time, and most difficult of all, he had death. The Jehovah's witness says, "If He's God, then God is dead, on the cross." Yes, he is God and He was dead on the cross. They just don't understand the Trinity, and they don't understand, "Father into your hands. I commit to my spirit.”   “Today, you'll be with me in paradise." They don't understand these things, but He was God, and He was, in fact, dead on the cross. 

Yet for those with faith, for those with eyes to see and ears to hear, there is ample evidence of His deity. Not a small amount, but an ample, a feast of evidence actually.  For example, his perfect moral character. He never sinned, He made it through 30 plus years in this alluring, enticing and attacking world without once sinning. No one else has ever done it, just Jesus. He spoke with a kind of authority and with an insight that we have been experiencing here in these parables and the Sermon on the Mount and his other great teachings that no one has ever even come close to. The perfection of teaching. He did miracles that cannot be accounted for humanly. He spoke to the wind and waves, and they obeyed Him. He spoke to dead people, and they came to life again, he spat on the ground and made mud and smeared it on blind eyes, and they could see.  He put his fingers in deaf ears and breathed, and those deaf ears were opened. He could feed a huge crowd with a few scraps of bread. He could do anything, anything that power could do, He could do, and He had a supernatural knowledge of people's hearts and minds, He read their thoughts. There's ample evidence and even more, He fulfilled prophecy from cradle to grave from when He was born and all the way to how He died and then through His resurrection, all of it covered with prophecy. 

There's ample evidence for the deity of Christ if you have eyes to see. Christ's glory was there all along. It was always there; it was just veiled by the flesh. It was part of God's strategy that we should believe by faith the Word that's preached. But it was always there. You remember how he took Peter, James, and John and led them up a high mountain by themselves and there He was transfigured before them, His face shone like the sun, His clothes became white as the light. They saw a brief glimpse of His glory. Did they see His full glory? We've already answered that earlier. No, they couldn't survive. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, they couldn't see His full glory, but they saw a brief glimpse of it, and they never forgot. The glory was still there, and it was there all long, and the glory can be seen also in the cross. If you have faith and a mind to understand what was going on there. The glory of the cross is unspeakable, it's incredible, I can't describe it. You see the attributes of God so perfectly displayed at the cross. His wrath and his justice in that he would rather have His son die suffering, than let any one of us sinners in heaven un-atoned for. That's His holiness, perfectly displayed at the cross. His love perfectly displayed in his compassion, in that the wrath and justice was poured out on a substitute, not on us. Poured out on his own Son, the glory of Christ could be seen, if you had faith to see it.

The dishonor therefore of Christ is only temporary. Isn't that glorious? His dishonor would only be temporary. And why? Because Christ made three great requests of his Heavenly Father in prayer. Did you know that everything that Christ asked for, he gets? He bats 1000 in His prayer life, to use a baseball analogy. Everything He asked for, He gets. Three great requests. John 17: 5, “Give it back, I laid it down. The work is finished, now give it back." Now that would be blasphemous if He weren’t the Second Person in the Trinity, because God said in Isaiah, "He will not share his glory with another." So, "Give me my glory back." That's the first request. The second, "Give me the nations as my inheritance." Psalm 2, "And I will rule them with an iron sceptre. I'll dash them to pieces like pottery. I will be King of Kings and I will be Lord of lords. All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me." Did Christ ask? Yes, he did. He asked, "Give me the nations." And the Father said, "Here they are, they're yours.”  He has all authority in heaven and on earth.

What's the third great request? "Give me my chosen ones, give me my elect, give me my sheep, that not one of them will perish." Has he made that request? Yes, he has. "Father, I want those whom you have given me, to be with me, where I am, and to see my glory. The glory you have given me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world." Is He going to have that?  He will, it's just not finished yet. So, his glory is eternal, his dishonor was only temporary, and someday, He will return, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him and all nations on earth will mourn because of Him. They will see and they will know. The Book of Revelation makes it plain in Revelation 1, and in Revelation chapter 19, the second coming of Christ. There will be a great unveiling at that point.   Faith will not be required. No need for faith at that moment. You'll see it. Every eye will see it, and you will see the glory of Christ. But all nations, it says, will mourn at that point. Now is the day of faith. Today is the day of salvation, this is the time of faith, now, hearing and believing a preached message and thinking it's all true. 

But Christ, while he walked on earth, he was dishonored by disbelief. We're looking at Matthew 13, "And he visits his hometown." In verse 53 and 54 it says, "When Jesus had finished these parables, he departed from there, and he came to his hometown and began teaching them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished." They said, "Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?" Jesus' ministry base while he was on earth was Capernaum, but that wasn't his hometown. His hometown, the Greek word here is "Patris", his hometown was Nazareth, and He goes back there. This is where He grew up, this is where He lived his boyhood years, and He went back to His hometown and He began teaching them. This is what He always did. This was His ministry. He went into the synagogue, which was the centre of Jewish life, away from the temple. They only had to go to the temple three times a year, the rest of the weeks they spent the Sabbath studying the Word of God, receiving teaching in the synagogues.

Jesus went into the synagogue and began teaching them in their synagogue, and they were amazed. Jesus had earlier preached the Gospel, had preached the Kingdom, the message of the Kingdom in Nazareth, and the people had rejected him.  It says that they were amazed. They're amazed, but unconverted. They're amazed, but unconvinced. It's the amazement, I believe, of unbelief. There are two great evidences to me to prove the deity of Christ. I would add a third, the sinless character and quality of his life. But the two great ones that He constantly refers to Himself is His teachings, His words, His works, and His miracles. These were the very things that they rejected here in the synagogue. They were amazed at his supernatural wisdom. They were amazed at his supernatural power. But it's actually a form of unbelief, because they launch a series of questions at Him, and none of them expect an answer. They're all rhetorical questions. Seven of them, one after the other.

Question one, "Where did this man get this wisdom?" Question two, "And where did he get these miraculous powers?" Question three, "Isn't this the carpenter's son?" Question four, “Isn't his mother's name Mary?" Question five, "Aren't all his brothers, James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas?" And question six, "And what about all his sisters? Aren't they here with us?" Question seven, "Where then did this man get all these things?" And they took offense at Him. They're not wanting answers to the questions. They are, every one of them, a question of origin. They have the origin, what we've seen as his physical origin, his physical life here in this hometown. We saw that. But now, they asked, “What's the origin of these miraculous, supernatural powers? What could it be?” They can't line up the two. They can't believe the incarnation. It's beyond them, they can't accept it. Jesus had grown up in a normal way in their hometown. 

Don't believe those spurious pseudo-Gospels that have Jesus doing miracles before his public ministry, it never happened. I don't know if you've heard of any of these.  For example, the Gospel of pseudo-Matthew, which says that while He was an infant, his mother was hungry and He commanded, as an infant now, a fig tree to bend over so that she could get something to eat, and it did. Isn't that remarkable? Or He was playing by a river and made some clay pots and all that, and a neighborhood bully, stomped on them and crushed them, and Jesus struck him dead with the word of his power. His mother then came and interceded, and said, "This is not good." So, He raised the boy back to life again, just because his mother asked him to. Oh, it makes for entertaining reading, but it's un-biblical because the first of Jesus' miracles He performed at the wedding in Cana of Galilee, displaying his power. None of those miracles ever happened. He grew up as a normal boy, except one thing. Normal boys, by my observation, are theologically sinful. I'm not giving any insights into my own family, but I'm just saying that normal boys and girls, they sin, and Jesus never did. But the townspeople were offended at him and could not connect with him. Familiarity had bread contempt here. The better they knew Him, the more they despised Him, and thought lowly of Him. But for the believer, do you know that's exactly opposite with Jesus? The more you know Him the more you worship Him.  The apostle Paul in Philippians 3, says, "I want to know him better, I want to know him that I might worship him better and better." It's just the exact opposite. But for these unbelievers, the better they knew Him, the more they had contempt for Him. The contempt is clear. Verse 57. "They took offense at him." We've already talked about the fact that Jesus had a family, that Mary was a busy mother of many. I don't know how many, because it doesn't list the number of sisters, but it says, "Aren't all his sisters with us?" I think that qualifies for at least three, probably more like four. That's a big family. Jesus had a family life. I would imagine that it was unlike any family that had ever lived before. That Jesus' perfection set the standard for his brothers and for his sisters. I've thought about this before. Why can't you be like Jesus? He never gives us a minute of trouble, except that we don't understand what He means when He says, ‘I must be about my Father's business.’ That's confusing, we're trying to understand, but He is morally pure and perfect. Why can't you be like Him?” I believe that, all humor aside, I believe that this was a stumbling block for his brothers. I think it was hard for them. Eventually they came to faith. Praise God they did.

The people took offense, and Jesus makes a pronouncement.  Only in his hometown and in his own house, is a prophet without honor. Look at that phrase, “Without honor.”  “You are stripping me of my glory." Long before Jesus' clothes were stripped from him and He was flogged by the Romans, His own people, even His own hometown, even His own family, stripped Him of His honor. "You dishonor me." Only in his hometown, in his own house, without honor. Christ is clearly stating here, "Your unbelief strips me of honor. In other places, I will be held in honor. Among the poor and needy sinners, the tax collectors, and the prostitutes I will be held in honor. Among the believing Roman centurions, who see me for who I really am, I will be by them held in honor. From people of every tribe, and language, and people, and nation. By them I will be held in honor, but in my hometown and in my own house, I'll be stripped of honor."  Their unbelief stripped him of honor. It says in verse 58, “He did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.” 

There's a strong connection then between the faith of the people and the miracles. This has been made again and again in Matthew. In Matthew 9:22, "To the woman who had been bleeding for twelve years, after she took the hem of his garment in her hand and was healed, Jesus said, ‘Take heart daughter, your faith has healed you.’” Later in that same chapter, Matthew 9, He touched the eyes of two blind beggars and said, "According to your faith, it will be done to you." To his discouraged disciples, after coming down off the Mount of Transfiguration, the other disciples being there, and not being able to drive out a demon, saying, "Why couldn't we drive it out?", He said, "Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, move from here to there and it will move, nothing will be impossible for you." Don't misunderstand. I think there's two errors you can make about this. Number one is that if there is no faith, Christ can do no miracles. That's an error, that's false. Christ can do anything He wants, any time He wants, whether you or I have faith at all. He doesn't need our faith to perform a miracle. Some of these health, wealth and miraculous ministries say, "If you don't have faith, Christ can't work."  That is so false. Do you realize how many great things that Christ has done without your faith? How about, "Let there be light?" And there was light. Was there anyone to have faith at that moment? That's a great accomplishment. How about creating the heavens and the earth, the seas and all that is in them, without your faith, He did all of that. Within the Gospel accounts, with many miracles, people had no faith for that miracle. Did his disciples believe that Jesus was about to still the storm? Absolutely not, they had no faith for that miracle. Jesus just did it. As a matter of fact, more often than not, there's no faith. Don't make the error of thinking, because there's no faith, Christ cannot do the miracle. Neither make the opposite error of saying that, "If there's an abundance of faith, Christ must do the miracle." Your faith doesn't compel God in any way, shape, or form. I believe that faith is essentially passive. It's like the eyesight of the soul. It receives what God is presenting to it. Without faith we're blind, but when we have our sight restored, we can see what God intends to do and receive it. Our faith doesn't compel God to do anything contrary to His will and plan.

Christ knew that it was by faith alone that we would be justified and that's what he sought , and because his neighborhood could not believe in Him, He'd only be heaping up burning coals of judgement on their head, by doing more and more miracles there that they would not believe, and so He stopped. He didn't do many miracles there because of their lack of faith. The real issue here is the shocking dishonor of their disbelief in Him. This morning as I was driving in with my kids, we were talking about one passage in Scripture, in John, chapter 8 when the Jews came to Jesus and said this. I want you to keep in mind that we're talking about, and they were talking to the same one that Ezekiel saw when he looked up high. The same one before whom the Seraphim veiled their sight. They said, "Jesus, aren't we right in saying that you are a Samaritan and demon possessed?" Jesus said, "I am not possessed by a demon, but I honor my Father, and you dishonor me." It's about the only place I find that Christ stands and defends himself. He doesn't do it for long because He says in the very next phrase, "I am not seeking glory for myself, but there is one who seeks it, and He is the judge." He's referring to His father. If we will strip Him of His honor, we make God our enemy. 

If we honor Him by belief, He will make us His children. If we can see in the incarnation, the glory of God we will become His children. John 1:10 says, "He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, and his own did not receive him. But as many as did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God."  Glorious! By simply accepting this, that the Word became flesh, and made His dwelling among us, and we have seen His glory. John said, not that we will see His glory, but we've already seen it. The glory of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. We saw it in His physical life on earth. We've seen His glory already and we believe in it." Therefore, by faith we see the truth about Christ. Faith lives by truth, not by sight. Let me say that again, faith lives by truth, not by sight. We hear the truth of Christ, we believe, and we have faith, and we see Him as he really is, God incarnate. Faith therefore cuts through that veil. Faith understands the death of Christ, it understands the atoning sacrifice, and faith alone saves the soul.

 Five years ago, I had the privilege of preaching to you on Matthew 16, “The Revelation of Christ to Simon Peter.” Jesus asked them, "What do you think about the Christ?" They gave Him answers and He said, "What about you? Who do you say I am?" Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. You are the Christ, the son of living God." Do you remember what Jesus said to him? "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not unveiled to you by a man, but by my Father." When you have faith, God the Father unveils Christ in your mind's eye, and you see Him as glorious, the Second Person of the Trinity, even in the death on the cross, and that becomes your salvation. 

What application can we make for this?  There are four ways that people dishonor Christ. The remedy is always the same, repent and believe so that you may honor Him. The first way is by disbelieving his claim to be God. That is the greatest dishonor anybody can ever due to Christ. Disbelieve that He is God in the flesh. I may today be speaking to some who don't believe that Christ, that God came to Earth in a human body, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that He died on the cross in your place.  I beg you, don't go on in disbelief, it dishonors him. Trust in him and believe. By disbelieving his claim, we dishonor Him, we strip Him of His glory. Repent and believe the good news. Come to faith in Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. 

The second way that people dishonor Christ is by disobeying his commands.  Jesus asked very simply, "Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and don't do what I tell you to do?" You can't believe that He is the King of the Kingdom of heaven and disobey Him. You can't believe that He's the King of the Kingdom of heaven and not submit your neck to His yoke. You must obey Him. We Christians do not dishonor Christ in the first way, but daily, we dishonor Him in the second way. We disobey His commands. The answer for us is repentance as well. Repent and turn away from sin, turn away from willfulness and rebellion and turn to Christ, and say, "You're my King, you're my Lord, my master. I honor you, I want to obey you, work obedience in my life."

The third way that people dishonor Christ is by delighting in his competitors. Delighting in his competitors? What does that mean? Christ wants your heart, He wants your affections, He wants your love, He wants the focus of your life to be on Him. Anything that takes His place as an idol, it's a competitor to Him. For you to delight in any worldly thing, even amoral things that are ordinarily blessings, so that they take the place of Christ in your life, you are delighting in his competitor and it strips Him of honor. Any time we sin, in effect, we're saying, "I wanted that more than I wanted Christ,” and it dishonors him.

The fourth way that I think, Christians especially, dishonor Christ is by delaying His coming. I believe that the day and date of His coming is set and cannot be changed. But yet, in Second Peter it says, "What kind of life should we live? We should look forward to the day of God and speed it's coming." How do we do that? By aggressive, risk-taking, courageous evangelism. By activity and missions, by sacrifice financially, by being willing to cross the dorm-room hall, or the street of your neighborhood, or the workplace and witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and challenge them and say, "Do you believe that Jesus is God? That he took on a human body and then he died on the cross?"  To share the words of the Gospel advances His Kingdom, speeds the day of His coming. If we don't do it, we're delaying His coming. Not in an absolute sense, that day is set and fixed, but within the sense that Second Peter meant when it said, "Look forward to the day of God, and speed its coming." I'm calling on all of us, every one of us to stop dishonoring Christ, in whatever way we've been doing. If you're an unbeliever, stop dishonoring Him by your unbelief. Believe that He is God in the flesh and come to faith today. Don't leave this place without talking to me about your soul, or to somebody else. Say, "I want to know Christ." To you who are Christians, stop dishonoring Christ by disobeying his commands. Obey him fully. He is the King and Lord. Submit your life fully to him, and don't substitute some earthly treasure for Christ. Don't delight in his competitors. Delight in him, delight in Christ, and let this be the day of His coming. Let's not delay it by our laziness and our inactivity. Let's be faithful in prayer, faithful in missions, and evangelism, that He may get the glory.

We're looking this morning at two verses, Mathew 13, verses 51 and 52, bringing out new treasures as well as old. If you were a traveler in Munstermaifeld, Germany in the 18th century, around the 1740s, and you came to the Eltz Castle, you would have been the guests of Philip Karl Zu Eltz who lived in that castle. He inherited it from his ancestors who been there for seven centuries up to that point and would continue for another four after him. He would sit you down at a table and you would enjoy a feast such as you had never experienced before. They would bring in all different kinds of game and vegetables and you would eat to your heart's content.   After it was over, he might dazzle you with some of the treasures from his storeroom. He might send a servant down there, and they might bring out, for example, a 16th century crossbow which also had a flint lock on it, one of the earliest forms of firearms in Europe. He'd dazzled you with that and say, "Look what I have." Or he might bring out a golden goblet which was inlaid with porcelain, a very rare combination at that time. Or some of his other porcelain treasures, some sculptures that he had bought from Italy, bringing them up out of his storeroom. He'd dazzle you with these things. But his favorite of all would be his electors ring, which had a little kind of trap door contraption in which he could switch out precious stones. He had 48 different precious stones which he would put in his ring depending on what clothes he was wearing. Whether it be a ruby or an emerald or some kind of a diamond, and he might bring out all 48 stones or just one and show it to you.  You could maybe hold his ring and look at it. He would dazzle you with those kinds of treasures.

It could be that Jesus had this kind of thing in mind when He said, "Everyone, every teacher of the law, who's been instructed about the Kingdom is like the owner of a grand house who has a store room, and in that store room he keeps these treasures and brings them out and shows them to his guests." Jesus, in context, is speaking after having given us and given the church for twenty centuries of God's people, seven treasures, the parables of Matthew 13. Jesus wants his disciples to understand those parables. 

Understanding is everything. His goal here is that his disciples would have a clear understanding of the treasures of the Word of God; that they would clearly understand what he'd said. In verse 51, He asked them a diagnostic question, "Have you understood all these things?" It's a simple question at one level. Do you get it? Do you understand what I've been saying to you? But at a deeper level, we see that understanding is everything. Understanding is the key. Remember the parable "The Seed and the Soils" in verse 23. Jesus, in the parable of the seed and the soils, says that, "The Kingdom of Heaven advances by the proclamation of the Word of God. When anyone takes that Word in and understands it," in verse 23, "he receives the Word as it were rich and overturned soil coming into his heart. It's ready. He takes the Word into his mind and he understands it.” Do you see that? The one who received the seed that fell on good soil is a man who hears the Word and understands it. He produces a crop yielding a 100, 60 or 30 times what was sown.

Therefore, the indication is clear, without understanding of the Word, without an understanding of the message of the Kingdom, you'll bear no fruit. You must understand this message; you must understand the parables and all the teachings. Understanding was the very thing that Christ intended to give them through the preaching of these parables. In Mark 4:33-34, it says, “There with many other parables Jesus spoke the Word to them as much as they could understand. He did not say anything to them without using a parable, but when He was alone with his own disciples, He explained everything." Wouldn't that have been wonderful to have Jesus not only teach you the parables but then explain the details of what they all meant? His goal was that they would have a clear understanding.

 Christian growth begins in the mind; it begins with the understanding. If you don't understand the message about the Kingdom, you're not saved. That's the parable of the seed and the soils, the hard-packed soil. When anyone hears the message of the Word and does not understand it, he's like that down-trodden path and then the devil comes and snatches away what was sown in the heart. There must be an understanding of the Word of God.  Jesus's desire here is that they would have a clear understanding. The psalmist in Psalm 119:34 prayed for this when he said, "Give me understanding, and I will keep your law and obey it with all my heart." There's a connection between understanding the Word of God, the law of God, and then how you live.

If you don't understand his Word, you can't live according to it, and so "Give me understanding," he prayed. I pray that prayer. When I'm having my quiet time, I say, "Lord, teach me your Word; give me understanding, so that I might obey what you want me to do. Without the understanding I cannot obey.”  Or again, Psalm 119:144, it says, "Your statutes are forever right. Give me understanding that I may live." Our life depends on understanding the Word of God, and we must have this understanding. Proverbs 2:6 says, "For the Lord gives wisdom, and from His mouth come knowledge and understanding." So, Jesus the Lord sought to give his disciples understanding, and he asked them, "Have you understood all these things?" He wants them to have a clear understanding of the nature of the Kingdom through the seven parables.

His second goal is not just clear understanding, but comprehensive understanding. "Have you understood all these things?" He says. I love their answer. "Yes, we get it, we get it all; we've got the whole thing. We're ready for a PhD in the Kingdom of Heaven." Oh, no they weren't. We'll get to that in a minute. He says he wants them to have a comprehensive understanding. "Have you understood all these things?" The context again is the seven parables. He's given them all of these parables to teach them the nature of the Kingdom of Heaven. That was Jesus's proclamation ministry. He came and proclaimed this message, he said, "Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." That was the nature of his preaching. If you said, "What is the Kingdom of Heaven?", you listen to Jesus, after a while and he's always talking about the Kingdom, what is the Kingdom? He told these parables that there might be a deeper understanding for the spiritual beggars who had the humility to come and ask him, who had the humility to come and say, "I don't get it, teach me."  They did, they asked," What does it mean?"  Jesus said, "I will explain it to you." The parable of the seed and the soils teaches us that the Kingdom of Heaven advances by the hearing of the proclaimed Word of God. When you hear it and receive it into a good and noble heart that's ready to receive the Word of God, you're going to bear fruit. But there are other ways to receive the Word. You could receive it, and for a little while, enjoy it, but then when trouble comes, you'll fall away, or you might be choked out by the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth, and so he talks about the nature of hearing the Word of God, believing it.

In the parable of the mustard seed, He asked, “Have you understood that the Kingdom of Heaven starts small like a mustard seed but grows so spectacularly that it's going to kind of dominate world history; it's going to be a big outward showy thing. So big and so showy that the birds of the air can come and perch in the branches of the mustard plant. Have you understood that that's what the Kingdom is like? Or thirdly, have you understood that it's also like yeast, which also grows but in a kind of a hidden, internal, mysterious way. So, you really can't tell what's going on from the outside. As you look at it, there's all kinds of stuff going on, but it's invisible; it's hidden. At the end though, it will have permeated the whole world; it will have affected all of human history, and every individual in the Kingdom as well. Complete permeation, it will take you over. Have you understood that? Have you understood the treasure hidden in the field? The fact that the Kingdom is so valuable that it's worth selling everything that you have to own it. And you may not even have been looking for it; you may have just stumbled across it as you want across a field, but there it is. And suddenly you realize that this one thing, the Kingdom of Heaven, was worth infinitely more than anything you possessed.  Have you understood that about the Kingdom? That it's worth it to trade everything for this one thing. Or the pearl of great price, teaching the same lesson, but saying it also is what satisfies you for what you have been searching for all your life. Like the merchant who's looking for that perfect pearl, and when he finds it, he realizes, immediately, the value, the size, the sheen, the perfection of the sphere. He knows it's worth his entire stock; he's willing to trade it all to get that one pearl. Have you understood that? Or have you understood the parable of the wheat and the tares, the fact that the Kingdom is going to advance in a world in which most of the people around you will not believe its message. It's going to be a mixed situation, it's going to be agonizingly slow for that reason, and that there's going to be a torturous conflict between the wheat and the tares, and it's not going to be resolved until the end of the world.  There's going to be wheat and there's going to be weeds, and you can't tell the difference. The Kingdom is going to be made up of people that look like friends, but they're really enemies. The world is going to be made up of people that look like enemies, but they're going to be friends, and you can't tell the difference, only God can. He's going to be working out His advance in this mixed situation. Have you understood this? Have you understood the dragnet, the fact that the Kingdom is going to advance silently and gather up all people into its net? They won't feel it; they won't know it's happening, but their time is going to run out, and when it runs out, there's judgement day, and the judgment will separate every single human being into one of two categories: Believer and unbeliever. And the believers, the righteous, will shine like the sun in the Kingdom of their Father, but the wicked will perish eternally in hell.” These are the seven parables. He says, "Have you understood all this?"

The immediate context here is this array. But I think the ultimate context of Jesus's question is, not just his seven parables but really all of Scripture. "Have you understood Scripture? Have you understood what I'm trying to teach you?" Jesus said, "I didn't come to abolish the law and the prophets. I did not come to abolish the Old Covenant. I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. I tell you the truth, until Heaven and Earth pass away, not the smallest letter and not the least stroke of a pen," jot and tittle in the KJV, "not even the slightest part of the Word of God, the Old Testament, will disappear until everything is fulfilled."  Jesus had a passion that all of Scripture be fulfilled. The Old Testament is eternal. The New Testament didn't exist when Jesus spoke this, but it was getting written on the hearts and minds of the apostles, and some day they would write it down.  Jesus testified that that also would be eternal, for he said, "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words," plural, my words, "will never pass away." My nouns, my verbs, my adjectives, my syntax, will still be with us 20 centuries later.” People like me are going to come and parse it through, work it through. “Think about it; it's still going to be with us. It's eternal. Have you understood all these things?” 

The Apostle Paul said in Acts 20:27, of the whole counsel of God’s word, "I've not shrunk back from, I've not hesitated from proclaiming to you the whole counsel of God. The treasures of the Old Testament, the treasures of the Kingdom of Heaven. Have you understood all these things?”  Now, we already alluded to their answer, but I think it's so beautiful. Have you understood it all? "Yes, we get it." "Oh really, why don't you explain it to me, then, since you understand it all." Actually, the movement of understanding in the disciples from absolute darkness and total ignorance to being able to write the New Testament is breath taking. It's really quite stunning to see their development. There was so much about the Kingdom that they really did not understand. They didn't understand Jesus's miraculous power. When Jesus walked on the water, they were terrified and thought he was a ghost, and they cried out in fear. Then Mark says, "They were completely amazed for they had not understood about the loaves." Their hearts were hardened. They didn't understand the feeding of the 5,000, so therefore they couldn't understand the walking on the water. They didn't know what it signified that Jesus was doing these signs. They didn't know that he was the incarnate Son of God. They didn't understand. Their hearts were hardened.

They didn't understand his figures of speech, his way of speaking. When he declared all foods clean. He said, "Though anything that goes into the mouth passes out the body, and therefore all foods are clean." They didn't get it, and they came and asked him about it. Jesus said in Matthew 15:16, "Are you still so dull?" That's very interesting. It's kind of sharp from the Prince of Peace, isn't it? "Are you still so dull? Don't you understand that everything that enters the mouth, goes into the stomach, and then out of the body, it doesn't defile you spiritually?” The word dull means thick, senseless, ignorant, slow to understand. He's kind of amazed at it. Like the time that they forgot to bring the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees." They're arguing saying, "It's your turn to bring the bread. Didn't you bring the bread?” And Jesus said, "You of little faith. Why are you talking among yourselves about having no bread? Do you still not understand? Don't you understand about the feeding of the 5,000, how many basketsful you gathered? How is it that you don't understand that I was not telling you to guard against the yeast used in bread, but against the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees." They didn't understand his way of speaking.

They didn't understand the symbolic actions. They didn't get it when He cleansed the temple, when He made that whip and cleansed the temple. They didn't know what that meant; it was only later they understood. They didn't understand it at the time of the triumphal entry. They didn't know what it signified. They had a complete misunderstanding of what that signified. They thought the Kingdom was coming now, but it wasn't. When Jesus washed their feet. I don't know how many it was, but he came to Peter and Peter said, "Lord, are you going to wash my feet?" That's an odd question, isn't it? "No, I'm going to skip you, Peter, and I'm going to go on to the next one. Of course, I'm going to wash your feet." But Jesus didn't say that, He said, "You do not understand now what I'm doing, but later, you will understand."

They did not understand the symbolic actions, but above all, they did not understand His death. They didn't; they weren't ready for it. They could not comprehend why He needed to die. Consistently, this was hidden from them. In Luke Chapter 9, verse 44 and following, it says, "Jesus said to them, 'Listen carefully to what I'm about to tell you. The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men.’” But they did not understand what this meant. It was hidden from them, so that they did not grasp it and they were afraid to ask him about it."  The same thing happened again in Luke 18 when He warned them that He was going to be betrayed to the chief priests and teachers of the law, that they were going to scourge him and hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and it says again in Luke 18, "They did not understand this." Even in John 16, where Jesus is working so intimately with them, teaching them, preparing them for all of the things that they're going to face, He says, "In a little while, you will not see me. And then after a little while, you will see me." And they said, "We don't know what he's talking about, a little while we won't. And then after a little while we will. We don't understand it, it's hidden from us; we don't get what he's saying."  They didn't understand his death. The very central reason why He came and took on a body they didn't understand, and neither did they understand his resurrection. When John and Peter were at the tomb, and they were looking at the physical evidence of the resurrection, they saw and believed it said, but they still did not understand from Scripture that he had to rise from the dead. So, Jesus, in Matthew 13, says, "Have you understood all these things?" "Oh yes Lord, yes." 

We also are so confident in our knowledge of the Word of God, aren't we? We're so confident that we've got it all figured out, our theology is all arranged. We understand Matthew; we understand the whole Bible. Really? Could it be that God has more things to teach us?  Could it be that our understanding needs to be infinitely deeper than it is? He wants them to have a comprehensive understanding, and when the Holy Spirit came, He guided them into all truth. He finished their discipleship. He enabled them as apostles to write the New Testament, to write down the new treasures. So, they became, along with the Old Testament prophets, the foundation for the church. In Ephesians 2, "Built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.” Yes, at the end of their training, they understood. Now in Heaven, they understand perfectly, but at the time, they did not have full understanding. So, Christ's goal here is not just that they have clear understanding, but that they would have a comprehensive understanding, and that's a lifetime journey, isn't it? A lifetime journey of leadership by the power of the Holy Spirit, until you really do understand the Word of God. 

But thirdly, He didn't just want them to understand. Oh no, that's not enough. He wants them to be delighted in these treasures. He wants the Word of God to inflame their hearts. Not a cold knowledge and ability to pass a theology exam, that's not enough. It has to be knowledge on fire; it has to be a delight in the Word of God, and so He uses the treasure analogy. That they would have rich delight in the Word. Look at verse 52, He said to them, "Therefore every teacher of the law who's been instructed about the Kingdom of Heaven, is like the owner of a house, who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old." This is the image is of a wealthy landowner, homeowner, who has got a treasure chest or perhaps a treasure room. He can send some servants down and bring some things up and dazzle the eyes of his guests with some old things that he's had for a long time, maybe passed down from generation and generation, and some new treasures that he's just acquired. He's going to show them now what he's got. He's talking clearly not about physical treasures but treasures of truth, treasures of the Word of God. Every teacher of the law who's become a full disciple and been instructed about the Kingdom of Heaven can bring out these kinds of treasures. They're not physical treasures. They are treasures of Scripture. Without instruction about the Kingdom, the Old Testament is dark and mysterious. It really doesn't make much sense, but the instruction about the Kingdom of Heaven brings these dark things out into full light, so we can understand them.

The Old Testament then becomes a sure and unmovable foundation for the Kingdom of Heaven. We start to understand the old treasures, namely the Old Covenant. The well-instructed scribe, the teacher of the law, can bring out treasure after treasure. The Old Testament starts to make sense. Genesis 1, the creation in which the King makes the world; creates it with the breath of his mouth, and therefore has the right and authority to make laws and rules by which it's to be governed. He gives a law to Adam that he should not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He has the right to do that, and He has the right also to sit in judgment over Adam to see what he will do. We also understand that man was created in the image of God but fell in the garden and sinned and became a wicked lawbreaker. He rebelled against the king, rebelled against his commands, and therefore stands under the judgment and the curse of God.

Then we understand the call of Abraham, the redemptive purpose of God as He called out Abraham and said, "Through him, all peoples on Earth will be blessed." We start to see the preparation, the setting of the table for the feast that will be the Kingdom of Heaven. These things begin to make sense. The Holy of Holies in the tabernacle becomes a symbol of Christ's actual body. The new and living way where we can have face-to-face fellowship with God in the New Covenant. Everything starts to make sense; the blood sacrifice, the animal sacrifice, a preparation for the bloody sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Substitution being established. The sacrifice died, and we didn't. The transfer of guilt onto the head of the lamb, and the guilty one goes free.  We understand these things, and frankly, I think that the animal sacrificial system makes no sense apart from the cross of Calvary. Why would God do that? But then with the old treasure combined with the new, all of a sudden everything starts to make sense. We start to see the whole picture, the ceremonial laws of Moses, the law of circumcision; physical circumcision in the Old Testament, a spiritual circumcision in the New, where our hearts are circumcised and prepared to accept Christ. The three feasts of Moses: The Passover, and the First Fruits, and the Final Fruits. Two of them fulfilled, one of them yet to be fulfilled.  Jesus is our Passover lamb; His blood was shed so that the angel of destruction death might pass over us, and we might not receive the wrath we deserve. Pentecost, the First Fruits, the first harvest being brought into the storehouse as people, 3,000 of them, believe in Christ and are brought in. Is the final harvest done yet? No. Therefore we're waiting for the Feast of Trumpets, that final harvest, when all of the things are brought in and we can celebrate the Final Fruits.

The Kingdom of Heaven explains the Old Testament, the old treasures. The moral laws of Moses, "You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, shall not steal, and all the other commandments like that, now written on our hearts by the Holy Spirit, a fiery finger of the Holy Spirit, so that we know how to live. The law of God now written inside us, not on tablets of stone external to us, but actually written on our hearts and our minds by the power of the Spirit. The Psalms become the prayers of children of God. Endued with energy and strength by the Holy Spirit, we can pray the Psalms back to our Heavenly Father. I would say that every emotional state you could find in your life, you're going to find somewhere in the Psalms. They become your prayer language. Proverbs, a wise way, a practical way of living every day, walking in the footsteps of Jesus who is wisdom incarnate. The Word of God comes alive. Old treasures become what they really are, treasures. The mysteries of Daniel's prophecies, of this rock cut out but not by human hands, destroying all of these kingdoms in itself becoming a Kingdom that takes over the whole world; all of a sudden that makes sense. We see these old treasures in the light of the new. 

Christ's fourth goal is that the disciples would have a fruitful teaching ministry themselves, so He uses this idea of scribes or teachers of the law using every teacher of the law who has become a disciple of the Kingdom. In Jesus's day, the scribes spent their whole-time copying Scripture. They didn't have the kind of word processors, or printing press, or any of the things that we have today. For anyone to have a Scripture, it had to be hand-copied. The scribes were the copyists.   The first scribes, according to the book of Moses, were kings. In Deuteronomy 17:18, the Law of Moses says, "Now it shall come about when he, the king, sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself a copy of this law on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priest.” So, the king actually took pen in hand and would copy the law himself; probably later on the kings didn't do this but hired people to do it for them. But I think it's so sweet that the kings themselves were supposed to make their own copies. They were the first scribes. Joshua was a scribe; he took on a scroll and wrote the whole law of Moses out [Joshua 8:32]. In the presence of the Levites, the Israelites, he wrote the Law of Moses.  Then came a whole group of scribes who spent their whole time writing and copying the Word of God. Second Chronicles 34:13 says some of the Levites were scribes. Ezra was a Godly scribe, who separated himself out that he might understand the Word and instruct it. He's described in the book of Ezra 7:10. "Ezra had devoted himself to the study and observance of the Law of the Lord and to teaching its decrees and laws in Israel.” In Nehemiah 8, "He gathers all of the remnant that's come back from the exile and they stand there all day, and he instructs them from the Word." What a delightful time as Ezra, the godly scribe, teacher of law, is teaching them.

The problem was in Jesus's day, most of them were not godly, but were his bitterest enemies, who fought against Him and who could not accept the new treasures, the new wine as it were, of the Kingdom of Heaven. They fought against it through traditionalism. They were not instructed about the Kingdom of Heaven; therefore, they could not accept the new treasures, only the old, and the old treasures become worthless without the new. You can't understand them; they have no value. So, Jesus says, "I'm looking for a new generation of scribes, of teachers of the law who will accept both old treasures and new.” Fully instructed about the Kingdom of Heaven, He doesn't want the disciples merely to have a clear understanding, or a comprehensive understanding of the Kingdom, and He doesn't just want them to delight in it themselves; he wants them to be teachers of it.  This is the essence of the teaching ministry of the apostles. They were not simply to hoard these things in, but they were to bring out of their storeroom and show these new treasures and old to everyone.  Jesus says, "All authority in Heaven and Earth has been given to me, therefore go and make learners; make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded." Bring out these treasures; show them the old treasures and the new, a new generation of Spirit-filled scribes, teaches of the Law, who understand the Kingdom of Heaven, and who also understand the value of the Old Covenant.

What kind of applications would Christ give us from these things? First, I'm going to establish or pronounce before you that the best kind of preaching is expository preaching. It's a bringing out, that's what "exposition" means. You're bringing up out of the text and showing the treasures that are in the text. Grievously many evangelical churches will settle for far less than those treasures. They will settle for the preacher's best jokes and stories. I have some good jokes actually. But I don't think that this is the place for that, I really don't. I mean, I can entertain you, but you'll go home the same as when you came in. The Word of God has transforming power. If we bring out these treasures and show them for what they are, treasures, true treasures, old and new, you'll be transformed by the renewing of your mind. You will gain a clear and comprehensive understanding of the Kingdom of Heaven, and you'll never be the same again. So, I'm advocating expository preaching. Somebody put it this way, and I think this is so delightful. The role of the preacher is similar to that which is done for pearls. We talked a little while I go about the pearl of great price and how valuable they were. Back in the old days, they didn't culture them, but you had to dive down to the bottom of the bay to bring up these oysters and maybe only one out of 100 would have any pearl at all in it. But they'd go down, they would dive down and bring up these oysters, open them up, and there would be the pearl. But it's just a loose pearl, needs to be cleaned up. It’s not jewelry yet; it's got to be brought to a jeweler who then knows how to put it together in a strand perhaps, or set it in a setting, so it becomes a beautiful brooch. Therefore, I think a good preacher is going to both do the diving down of exposition to bring up truths. You've got Greek and Hebrew and logic and grammar and systematic theology and all of these things. But that's not a sermon yet, is it? It's raw material for a message, but it's not an actual message. It’s got to be set into something beautiful so it's attractive and winsome and appealing. That's the work of a jeweler. So, there's a proclamation of the beautiful truths of the Word of God. Never settle for anything less than that, whatever church you're in. That you would have this kind of exposition so that the treasures really are treasures, the treasures of the Word of God and not of some human opinion or running commentary on politics or other things like that. You don't need that; you need the Word of God, and you need the Kingdom of Heaven to be explained.  Psalm 119:130 says, "The unfolding of the opening of your words gives great light; it gives understanding to the simple." My job is to unfold the Word for you. All godly teachers should do the same.

Secondly, biblical theology. What do I mean by biblical theology? Well, that's a technical term for people. I don't just mean theology that's biblical. I mean that, but I mean more than that. Systematic theology is an organization of all of what the Bible says topically; all of what it says about God, about the Trinity, about Christ as redeemer. It’s about atonement, redemption, prayer, angels, and the final judgment, topically. We've been going through a systematic theology course, not in the summer, but that's what we were doing before. That's beneficial, but that's not what I'm talking about. Biblical theology sees the entire picture of the Bible, the single story that the 66 books are telling and teaching; kind of like a tapestry, if you would. There's the Bayeux Tapestry, which talks about the Battle of Hastings 1066, and it's 230 feet long and about 20 inches wide, and there's all these little scenes taken from that significant battle. And it's just rolled out, and you can look. And by looking at the whole thing, you get the whole story of the Battle of Hastings. Systematic theology would take all of the green strands from the tapestry and put them in one place, all the red strands in another, all the blue strands in another, etcetera. But biblical theology takes and sees the whole picture, the whole tapestry, for all the story that it's telling.

 And what story is it telling? It's telling the story of a holy and righteous God, a king who has the right to make laws and has the right to enforce them and judge them, and whose judgment on the breaking of his laws is death, and who has spoken a death penalty over the sinful human race but has paid the death penalty through His son, Jesus Christ. Through simple faith in Christ, your death penalty can be paid. That's the story. Biblical theology. The whole big picture. Are you saved? Has your death penalty been paid? Do you have the treasure of eternal life today? If you're not sure whether you have eternal life, whether you've ever trusted in Christ, you must not leave this building without being sure. Talk to me, talk to some others who know the Lord and say, "I want to be saved. I want my sins forgiven through faith in Christ. My soul is worth more than the entire world. Jesus said so. "What would it profit you to gain the whole world and forfeit your soul?"  But the big picture of biblical theology is the story of redemption. The history of redemption. 

Thirdly, give the whole counsel of God's Word, old treasures and new, all of them. Everything that God says to us is a treasure. There's no trash in the Bible. Even though doctrine, some of them may be controversial and difficult to hear, I think sometimes those are the ones we need to hear the most, because that's where we're farthest from God's way of thinking.  have come to delight in all of the Word of God and to embrace it, no matter what the cost. We should embrace the whole counsel of God as a treasure. I don't want anything that God doesn't want to give me. Do you? I want all that He does want to give me.  There's a correction that comes. Paul says, "I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole counsel of God."

Fourth, there is biblical evangelism, that you would share... Could you share Christ just from the old treasures? The apostles did. Could you just share Christ from the Old Testament? Could you do Psalm 22? Could you do the Son of Man vision in Daniel 7? Could you see the value and richness of the old treasure because the old treasure is Christ, just as the new treasure is? I had a plane flight back from China one time with a lady who was born in Israel, served in the Israeli army and had a rabbi who was her best friend. She was Jewish, and we had about eight hours together, much to her dismay, I guess. But we had a good time talking. She had never looked at the Son of Man vision in Daniel 7. She said she's going to ask her rabbi this week. That was two years ago, I don't know if she did. Who is the Son of Man? To be able to proclaim the Gospel from all of Scripture is biblical evangelism. Share the light. Do you delight in the Word of God, is it your treasure? Are you eager to learn more about the Bible? Are you hungry and thirsty for it? To have no interest in the Scripture is a great mark that you are probably not born again, but God puts within us a hunger and thirst to know his mind, to understand his word. Are you hungry and thirsty? Do you have a delight in the Word of God? And finally, do you demonstrate that delight by a very practical thing called a daily quiet time? Do you get up early in the morning and open the Bible and study it, or perhaps late in the evening, or some time? Do you have a set apart time in which you are taking in the Word of God as your body takes in physical food, feasting on the word, meditating on it, taking it in? Fathers, are you gathering your families around the family altar that you might open the Word of God and show them by your example, how much you treasure the Word? Is this something that you're doing? I pray that you would.  Christ has set before us, not just in this one text but in all the Bible, in 66 books, old treasures as well as new. Sometimes I think of this text in terms of old treasures, of things I've already learned and they're still treasures, but there's still a lot of new ones I haven't discovered yet. I'm urging you to go on a voyage of discovery through the Scripture and find the treasures he has for you.

 Pastor Andy Davis preaches an expository sermon on Matthew 13:47-50. The main subject of the sermon is how the kingdom of heaven draws in all kinds of people.

We're looking this morning at the Parable of the Dragnet in Matthew 13:47-50. Now, all of you have heard the expression, and feel the weight of the truth that time flies by; it's constantly flying by. We have lots of different ways to mark time. I saw one father who took a photo of his daughter at a certain beach, at a certain place, a certain time every year for over 60 years. That's one way to mark time, just by watching your children grow up.  All of you probably have a timepiece on your wrist.  We mark time in a lot of different ways, and people have marked times through sundials and water clocks, through the pendulum clock, and Swiss movement, and quartz vibrations and all kinds of things. The clock on my wall in my office which is set forever as far as I'm concerned, anyway, for 8:50. There's nothing significant about 8:50. I just got tired of hearing at every quarter hour, half hour, and three quarters of hour the chiming of the bells, a constant reminder of the fleeing nature of time. 

Time is flying by, constantly advancing. We can use watches, and we can use constellations and stars and the sun and moon to measure the advance of time. But in Matthew 13 and in the Scriptures, we have a different way to mark time, and that is by the advance of the kingdom of heaven. The moving ahead of the gospel of Jesus Christ around the world gives us a different way to measure time. In Romans 13:11 it says that we should understand the present time. The hour has come to wake up from our slumber, because salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. Our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. Time is marching on. What is time bringing us to? It's bringing us to, if we're believers in Christ, our salvation, our yet and future salvation. Salvation from what, and salvation to what? If you're here today as an unbeliever, and if the Lord were willing and I had two hours of your time, I could present an overwhelming case to you of why you should repent and trust Christ as your personal savior.   I would bring you to hell for one hour, and then I'd bring you to heaven for one hour. After those two hours, I would sit down with you and say, "Are you ready to trust in Christ?" And you would say, "Absolutely." Frankly, only one of the two would be sufficient, I think.  Either one would be fine. But you see, God has ordained in the Gospel a double blessing for those who repent and trust him. Freedom from hell, and eternity in heaven, a double blessing. God has also ordained a double curse for those who reject this message, eternity in hell, and never seeing heaven. Those two hours would change your life. But I know that God is not willing to give you that opportunity to see heaven and hell, rather he's ordained that the simple proclamation of the Word be sufficient for you —that you hear hell explained out of this text, and heaven explained clearly in other texts.  That you hear it explained and in the hearing of the word with faith and say, "That's enough for me. Just to hear that this is what the Word of God teaches, now, that's enough for me." The time would be well spent, hearing and believing the Word of God, and that's the purpose of our Savior, Jesus Christ in this parable, the parable of the Dragnet. 

Parables are given for a variety of reasons, but one of them was to explain the nature of the kingdom of heaven. I think in this particular parable Jesus is in a very special way appealing directly to his hearers. I think he's speaking to his own disciples, many of whom made their living as fishermen. They knew what these nets were, they understood, and so He's appealing directly to them.

When He first called them to be his followers, his disciples, in Matthew 4:18, as Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, He saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. And then going a little further, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee, and his brother John. They were in a boat with their father Zebedee repairing their nets.   So, these four disciples, who part of his inner circle, they actually felt these nets with their own hands, they knew what it was to make a living with these fish and fishermen's nets. Jesus said, "I'm going to call you to a higher form of fishing. Follow me and I will make you fishers of men." They understood. There were different ways to catch fish back then, as there are different ways to catch fish now. One simple way is to take a fishing pole with a line and some bait and drop it into the lake and catch a fish that way. We see this in Matthew 17, when Jesus is describing the need to pay the temple tax, and He talks to Peter about it and says, "We really shouldn't have to pay this tax, because we are sons of the kingdom. You shouldn't have to pay to be in your Father's house. But so that we may not offend them, go to the lake and throw out your line, and take the first fish you catch, and open its mouth, and you'll find a 4-drachma coin there. Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours."   So that's one type of fishing, a single hook, bait and line. There's also a small one-man casting net. If you could imagine a smaller net, you can put it on your shoulder, and you would cast it out into the lake. If you knew where the schools of fish approach the shore, you could just stand on the shore, and just cast it out in a kind of a spinning motion and hold on to a center line, and there are weights on the edge of this kind of small one-man casting net and they would sink down and then you could kind of pull it up like a purse and whatever was inside the net would be pulled ashore. That's the kind of net that Peter and Andrew were using when Jesus first met them.

 But then there's this large dragnet, “sagene” is the Greek word. It's this big thing that takes a whole team of fishermen to use it. There are different ways you could do it. You could go out in the middle of the lake with a number of boats and if you could imagine a big, huge net and it was just all in a big circle. And then there would again be weights and floats and they were able to fill it up, or sometimes they would just anchor more one end to the shore and take a few boats out in a big arc and they would move out in a prescribed arc, and curve around back toward the shore and then pull it when the net was full up on the shore.  The pulling and the emptying of the net could take a whole team of fishermen as many as two or three hours.  Can you imagine what kind of weight that was caught by that kind of a net? — Everything dropped over the side of the boats, different types of fish, some that you liked and some you didn’t, seaweed and all kinds of things were caught by that larger type of dragnet. That's the net that Jesus has in mind here, this large kind of dragnet, that makes a big arc out and then comes back and when it's full, then the fishermen sit down and separate the good fish from the bad.

What is the point of this parable? He’s zeroing in on the issue of the separation that will come on Judgment Day. It's a point that he's made time and time again. Just as we saw earlier with the wheat and the tares, there's going to be a separation on Judgment Day. The kingdom of heaven at present is in a mixed condition, mixed together, wheat and tares, good fish and bad fish, all kinds of fish in this dragnet. The focal point is the action of the fishermen sitting down on the shore and separating the good fish from the bad ones. The good fish are thrown in the basket, the bad ones are thrown away.  The sitting down implies a sense of finality, somewhat like Judgment Day, when it says, "When the son of man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory, and all the nations will be gathered before him and he will separate the people one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He'll put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left." The sitting down really is like a picture of judgment sitting down on that judgment throne.

This parable therefore has a promise for we who are believers. The promise is that the mixed condition of the kingdom is only temporary, it's not going to go on forever. We have repeated promises in the Scripture of separation. John the Baptist said that Jesus's winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will clear His threshing floor. He'll gather the wheat into His barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. We've seen earlier in Matthew 13, the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares, and how they will be separated on Judgment Day by the angel, sheep from the goats also and here also, the good fish from the bad. There will be a great separation, the wicked from the righteous on that final day.

This goes to a very deep theological root in the nature of God. God is in the business of separating light from darkness. Just as from the very beginning when He created, He separated the light from the darkness, and He called the light good and He called it day. He also separated the water above from the water below, and the dry land from the oceans. He's in the business of separating in this way. When He called out a people for himself, the Jews, they were his chosen people, He called on them through the law of Moses to be a separate people.   In the KJB it says, “peculiar people.” Have you ever met peculiar people who are believers in Christ? What that means is a separate people, a people separate from the surrounding nations. They're not to be like the pagans that surrounded them in the Promised Land. The Book of Leviticus is all about holiness, it's about separation. “You must be holy,” says the Lord, “because I am holy, and therefore you're not to eat these things, and you're supposed to wear certain clothes.” There was an outward physical visible aspect to this separation that God called his people to.  When they entered the Promised Land, they came to Jericho, and God said the whole city is under the ban of holiness. Everything in that city is mine, it's the first city you're going to conquer in the Promised Land.  You must take nothing of the plunder, all of it is mine and if any of the plunder is found in your tent, you, like it, will be swept away, so as you cleave to something evil, as you take it into your tent, into your house, you join yourself with what God has ordained will be swept away.  It was Achan who violated this ban and took into his house some of the plunder, a Babylonian robe that looked so attractive to him, and a wedge of silver and some other things. He hid them in his tent, and he was swept away with those forbidden things. So also, during the rebellion of Korah, Dathan and Abiram. When the time for judgment came away, God told the people, move away from their tents, don't touch any of their things. Now, that's a command I would obey. I'd be running from those tents. And imagine if you were Korah, Dathan and Abiram, seeing all the people physically moving away from you. Then suddenly the ground trembled and they were swallowed up. 

A separation between the righteous and the wicked. This principle is carried over into the new covenant as well. It's not just an old covenant principle, but it says in 2 Corinthian 6:17, the Apostle Paul was speaking to the Corinthian church which was surrounded by a pagan culture, a wicked and idolatrous and immoral culture in Corinth.  Paul writes to the Corinthians, "Therefore," he says, "Come out from them and be separate says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing and I will receive you."  So also in Revelation 18, speaking of the fall of the great city of Babylon, the symbol of a world system in rebellion against God with worldly  things, in Revelation 18:4, "Then I heard another voice from Heaven say, come out of her my people, so that you will not share in her sins. And so that you will not receive any of her plagues." If you are cleaving to that which God has rejected, then you also receive the same condemnation.  There's a clinging there, but God calls on his people to be separate. God's own nature calls for this. God is the one who is of holy eyes and cannot even look on evil. In 1 John 1:5, it says of Him, that “God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.” There's nothing evil inside God, and so if you want to be with God, you must be holy and pure and separate. This is the message that we've heard from the start. Also, God's electing, He's choosing in love. There's a picture of this separation in Deuteronomy 7:6, "You are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the Earth to be his people, his treasured possession." This calls also for a separation. We are his chosen people, chosen out from the surrounding world.

In the end, God's love for us, his lavish love for us calls for this separation, doesn't it? Aren't you weary of evil? Aren't you tired of the temptations and the struggles? Aren't you yearning for the day when this separation will come and be perfected, and don't you yearn to see your own perfection, your own holiness when at last God's saving work in you has brought, is brought to completion, and you are perfect, holy and blameless in his sight? You yearn for this separation, you know why? Because evil has had its full history.  We've seen what it can do, we've been eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for centuries. We see what evil can do, we're worn out with it, and we want to be done with it. We want this separation. We want Him to do it, and the love of God mandates it. Matthew 13:41, "The Son of Man will send out his angels and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil."  Weeded out, a clean and a pure kingdom, not mixed anymore, but pure and holy, He will clean it out. In Revelation 21:4, ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away Behold, He’s making everything new.”

 God makes everything new by this separation that Jesus talks about in this parable. There is here in this text a grave warning that eternal torment awaits the wicked. Look again at verse 49 and 50. "This is how it will be at the end of the age; the angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."  This passage is not merely a promise, but it is also a grave warning to unbelievers. Not merely a promise, but also a warning. Jesus, our loving Savior, warned constantly about hell, did he not? He's not shying away from saying it. This passage is about hell, among other things. He's going to tell the truth. In the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:22, it says, "Anyone who says you fool is in danger of the fire of hell."   He said also in Matthew 5:29-30, "If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away, it is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell." Jesus warned unbelieving Jews, "The subjects of the kingdom," he said, "Will be thrown outside into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."  In Matthew 8:12, "And then to unbelieving Capernaum, He said, "And you, Capernaum," Matthew 11:23. "Will you be lifted up to the skies? No, you will go down into Hades. If the miracles that were performed in, you had been performed in Sodom they would have remained to this day. But I tell you, it'd be more bearable for Sodom on the Day of Judgment than for you."   Jesus told the truth; he didn't candy coat it. There was a grave threat hanging over sinful human race, and it's for that reason that He came into the world. He said to the Scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 23, "You snakes, you brood of vipers, how long will you escape being condemned to hell?"

 This is a very direct, very personal grave warning concerning hell.  American evangelicals are squeamish about talking about hell. We don't like to talk about it. We want to rearrange the biblical language to make it a little bit easier to communicate about. We are doing no one any service by doing this. We're certainly stepping away from the example of our loving Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  Campus Crusade for Christ people are always desiring to reach out with the Gospel, always desiring to bring people to faith in Christ. But their tracks say at the end, unbelievers will simply get what they've always wanted, eternal independence from God. If I'm an unbeliever, that sounds pretty good. “I’ve been living that my whole life and I get to do that forever. No more people, like you, kind of burdening my conscience with the sense of guilt. That sounds good, eternal independence from God. I get what I've always wanted, and those holy rollers they get, I guess, what they always wanted too... And everybody's happy.” That is not what this text is saying. Not at all. I remember a while ago, Mark Twain said he's aware of these prophecies and predictions about hell, but he just doesn't like Christians, so he says you need to go to Heaven for the climate, but to hell for the company. I thought about that and I said, “What kind of company will we have in hell if we're unbelievers?”  John Bunyan talked about the company that people who go to hell will have in hell. “You shall have none, but a company of damned souls with innumerable company of devils, to keep company with you while you are in this world. The very thought of the devil's appearing to you makes your flesh to tremble and your hair to stand up right on your head. Not only the supposition of the devils appearing, but the very real society of all the devils of hell will be with you, howling and roaring and screeching in such a hideous manner that you will be even at your wits end and ready to run stark raving mad again for anguish and torment, if after 10,000 years an end should come there would be comfort. But here is your misery here, you must be forever, and when you see what an innumerable company of howling devils you are amongst you shall think this again, this is my portion forever. And when you have been in hell so many thousand years as there are stars in the firmament or drops in the sea or sands on the seashore, yet you have to lie there still forever.”  Oh, this one word, forever, how it will torment your soul. I pray that Mark Twain repented before it was too late because this is more accurate concerning the company that unbelievers have to share in hell. 

What lessons can we learn from this parable? Well, I have seven. We're going to look at seven lessons on the approaching Day of Judgment. The first is the silent progress, the silent gradual and imperceptible approach of the Day of Judgment. It's very much liked this dragnet that's just kind of moving silently through the water.  It's just moving through the water, the fish don't even notice it, except that occasionally they may brush up against it and they swim away. Skittish, it's an odd feeling. Makes them feel strange, and so they'll swim off, never noticing that their swimming area is getting every smaller ever smaller. Silently, imperceptibly, the Kingdom is advancing, the time is drawing near. They can't feel it, they don't know it's coming, but it is. And their swimming area, the volume of water that they have to swim in is ever more constricted until finally they are pulled up onto the shore. This is the silent imperceptible advance of the kingdom.  I saw an ad on television for the partnership for a drug-free America. It was talking about the effects of sniffing certain chemicals on the brain. It was a very clear, beautiful rectangular fish tank with goldfish in it. They're all swimming around, but somewhere the water's draining out, and it just... It keeps going lower and lower and the fish are running out of room. That's what happens to your brain starved as it is for oxygen and other things, it just dies. That is the picture I get of this dragnet. Just ever less room until it's done. But you don't feel it. There are unbelievers, around you all the time, but they don't realize how this net is drawing them in, and how suddenly, it will be finished for them.

The second lesson is the measured scope of the net, the number of people and the amount of time, both of them measured. In verse 48 it says that when the net was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Each dragnet had its own capacity, its own size. At one-point Jesus, overwhelmed the capacity of Peter's net. You remember that the net was tearing because the catch was too much. This dragnet has a certain size to it, there's only so much that it can take. So also, the kingdom has been measured out. There's a certain scope of both time and of people. Do you know that if you're a believer in Christ, your days were numbered before even one of them came to be? Psalm 139:16 says, "All the days ordained for me were written in your book, before one of them came to be.” The same is true also for the unbelievers, for the sinners. Remember what God said to Abraham, concerning the Promised Land that he was walking on at that point. “It's not your time, yet Abraham it's not yours yet.” In Genesis 15:16, it says, “In the fourth generation, your descendants will come back here to this promised land because the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.” God also therefore has measured out the amount of time for the unbeliever, the amount of sin for them. When that measure is full, it's over. The Amorites weren't counting those days. They thought time would go on forever, but it didn't. This net has a certain scope, a certain scope of time, also a certain scope concerning people. Do you think that babies are born without God knowing it?  No, God knit you together in your mother's womb. Every child measured out. Does God not know how many people will be born in the history of the world? Of course he does, and it goes even further than that in Acts 17:26, “From one man, He made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth, and he determined the time set for them, and the exact places where they should live.” God set up the geographical boundaries. The scope of the net has been measured. He knows what He's doing. He also set a time when it will end. In Acts 17:31 when Paul is preaching to the Athenians, he says that God has set a day when He will judge the world with justice by the man that He has chosen. He's given proof of this to all men by raising Him up from the dead.  Jesus will sit on a judgment throne at the set and appointed time. This net has a certain scope to it, it's not infinite, it's not going to go on forever, there's a certain measured scope to it.

 The progress of the gospel is also measured out. This is great mystery, but so it is. In Romans 11:25, Paul dealing there with the Jews, concerning their hardening and so many of the Jews are rejecting the Gospel, so few are believing, says Israel has experienced a hardening in part and he says all will continue until the full number of Gentiles has come in.  There's a scope to the advance of the Gospel. He knows what He's doing. Everything is measured out. The kingdom advances, silently imperceptibly, but there's a measured scope. He knows what he's doing. 

Thirdly, total inclusion, every single solitary human being will be drawn in by this net. Everyone. No one will be missing. Verse 47, “Once again the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish, and when it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore then they sat down.” They collected the good fish in baskets but threw the bad away. It says literally that all kinds of the fish, every single category or type of fish will be drawn up into this net. People from all walks of life, from every nation, culture and language, people from America, yes, but also from Rwanda, from Bulgaria, from China, from Argentina, will be drawn into this net. Aborigines from the Australian Outback, English royalty from the House of Windsor will be drawn up into this net. People whose mothers sang to them in the Navajo language, and those whose mothers sang to them in English will be drawn up into this net. People who have PhDs and Nobel prizes, and also those who couldn't finish high school will be drawn up into this net.   It's all inclusive. Nobody swims through. People whose faces have graced the covers of fashion magazines and those who are grossly disfigured and repulsive to look at. People who are buff and strong and in good health and those that are obese and out of shape will be drawn up into this net. Every single category of people, every single solitary person. John Piper says that hell will be a very diverse place. You know that's interesting.  We talk about diversity, saying that America is a diverse culture, and we like that.  We celebrate diversity, and our public schools are told to celebrate diversity. Well, hell will be a very diverse place.  Romans 2:9, put like this, “There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first, and also the Greek.” God is no respecter of persons in salvation or damnation. The human race, and every ethnic group in it, are united in this great reality. We are all depraved and condemned, we're all lost in the woods together, we're all sinking on the same boat, we're all dying from the same disease. 

Fourthly, look at the angelic action. You see how the angels are involved in all this. Verse 49 says, “This is how it will be at the end of the age; the angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous. And throw them into the fiery furnace where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Once again, the angels are highlighted here as the gatherers and the separators, they're very active. This is actually repeated so often in the end time teachings of the Bible that it has to be, I think, a major theme of the end time teaching. The angels are involved, they're active, they gather, they separate, they bring some to heaven, they throw the others to hell. This is what the angels do.

Fifth, we see a simple separation.  I talked about the diversity of Earth, the diversity of all of the fish caught up into this net, but there will be, for all of that diversity, only two categories on Judgment Day. There will be two and only be two categories. The wicked and the righteous, that's all. There are not three different containers. The fishermen are throwing the fish int two piles, the wicked and the righteous. Other places we call it believers and unbelievers, the weed and the tares, the sheep and the goats, the good fish and the bad fish. Two different categories. Can God really be that narrow-minded? That's not narrow-minded, that's His nature. You're either with Him or you're against Him, he's either for you or he's against you. That's the way it is, it's His nature. There will only be two categories, the wicked and the righteous. 

Now, let's not misunderstand those terms. Wicked and righteous could trick us into thinking it has something to do with our own good deeds. Maybe perhaps outweighing our bad or something like that, but the fact is, the Bible teaches very plainly that no one is naturally righteous.  Romans 3:10, says, “As it is written, there is no one righteous. No, not one.” If that is so, and there were going to be the two categories, the one would be overflowing and the other a null set except one person. Jesus Christ. He's the only one, and if He chose only to live as a display but not as an atoning sacrifice, that would be it. It would be Christ alone, righteous before the law of God, and no one else could stand. We are naturally wicked and naturally would have been gathered that way except for the blessed Gospel of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. It is a free gift of righteousness, a free gift, accepted only by faith, a gift of righteousness that comes simply by looking at Jesus dead on the cross and say, "I deserve that he's dying in my place. I'm a sinner, but Jesus is my substitute. Oh, Jesus, be for me, righteousness. Be for me, that asbestos robe that's going to get me through the fires of Judgment Day. Be, for me, my savior be righteousness for me, Jesus, that is the gift of righteousness.” Romans 3 in Verse 22, it says, “This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ, to all who believe, there is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.” God presented Jesus as an atoning sacrifice through faith in his blood, a gift of righteousness through the blood of Jesus Christ. That's one way to understand the righteous. Another is a lifestyle of righteousness that flows out of being a Christian. In other words, once you are saved, once you are justified, you begin to live differently, don't you? You begin to love what's right and hate what's evil. You begin to put sin to death in your life, and by the power of the Spirit you grow in righteousness, every day more and more like Jesus, yearning for Him. So, we can speak of a set of people called the righteous in this world, righteous in position as God sees them, righteous practically in everyday life, not perfectly, so because it says in Galatians 5:5,  "By faith, we eagerly await through the spirit the righteousness for which we hope so we're waiting for a perfect righteousness.” We are growing in a practical righteousness. These are the righteous, and everyone else are the wicked. Even if they've done good deeds, even if they think they're good people, if they have not received the free gift of righteousness through faith in Christ, they are wicked in God's sight.

And that brings us to the next lesson, the sixth lesson the eternal nature of the torment of hell. This is how it will be at the end of the age [v 49-50]. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Hell is a place of constant torment. Weeping and gnashing of teeth I believe implies both psychological torment and physical torment. Psychological, because I think you have a memory of your life and how you wasted opportunities. How perhaps you heard the gospel and yet were too hard-hearted to repent and believe, and there will be an agony of regret at what you did. You'll remember what you did but it won't do you any good. It won't be redemptive remembering. It will be agonizing remembering, a weeping therefore but also a gnashing of teeth, because there's an actual physical torment. There will be levels of suffering for Matthew 11:22 says, “I tell you; it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you.” There will be different levels of suffering; the lighter and revelation you had in life, and yet did not repent, the worse it will go for you on Judgment Day.

 That's how it goes... And now I come to a controversial issue, and that is the eternal nature of this torment; that hell is not temporary, it is eternal. In Matthew 25 in speaking of the sheep and the goats, Jesus says, to those on his left, "Depart from me, you who are cursed into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” The same word is used to describe for the sheep "Come you who are blessed by my Father, into the eternal life, the eternal Kingdom prepared for you by my father.” That's the same word. There's a parallelism here, so if the fire of hell is not eternal, neither is the life in heaven eternal. That they are eternal is even clearer in Revelation 14:11, “and the smoke of their torment rises forever and ever there is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and his image or for any who receives the mark of his name.” No rest day or night; it goes on forever and ever. Clark Pinnock, back in 1990 when people still thought of him as an Evangelical wrote this: “It just does not make any sense to say that a God of love will torture people forever for sin's done in the context of a finite life. It's time for evangelicals to come out and say that the biblical and morally appropriate doctrine of hell is annihilation, not everlasting torment.” Poof, you're gone. That's it. Annihilation. Not eternal suffering, just gone, burned up in the flame. Even John Stott, a faithful teacher in other areas, gets sucked into this error, and says that it will be emotional torment. I find the concept of eternal conscious torment intolerable, and do not understand how people can live with it without either cauterizing their feelings or cracking under the strain.  Annihilation, it that what Scripture says? Is that what Jesus came to warn us about?  Is that why he died on the cross, that we would not be annihilated? John Piper puts it this way, “There are no more fearful words in the universe than the words, “God is against you.” If infinitely powerful wrath is against us, annihilation would be a sweet gift of grace, which is why those who try to persuade us that annihilation is what judgement means. Annihilation under the wrath of God is not judgment, it is deliverance and relief [Revelation 6], “They call on the mountains and the hills to fall on them and crush them so that they don't have to face the wrath of the Lamb.”  No, there is no annihilation of any human being. We live forever with God either for us or against us. All who are in Christ may say, with almost unspeakable joy, “God is for us. Who cares who's against us?” If you are a believer looking into the doctrine of hell gives you an incredible joy in your salvation.  Piper, says. “Imagine God meeting Adolf Hitler on judgment day and saying for all of your crimes for all of your willfulness, your rejection of me, your hatred of my people, for all of the slaughter and murder I condemn you, to be instantly annihilated.” It's not biblical, and it's not what's happening, it's not what's going to come.

Point 7, heaven is a place of eternal blessedness. Free forever from all evil, free forever from all temptation, free forever from the devils of hell and all wicked people who don't love Jesus. Free forever from all of that temptation, free from your own residual sin nature, free, free, free from sin and evil forever. Now that's eternal blessedness. If I could have just two hours of your time, and if God wills and permitted for me to take you on those two trips, you would come to faith in Christ, today, but he will not permit it, because He wants you to hear the Word and believe it and that's all the word needs to be enough for you. 

 First of all, know the overwhelming urgency of repentance and faith, for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, eternally perish, but have eternal life. That's why God sent His Son. The offer is open and free for any of you to hear the words I'm speaking. Through faith in Christ alone, be counted as righteous in God's sight. But if you choose not to, you will not be able to say on judgment day, I never knew that this is what was facing me. Yes, you do, because on August 3rd, 2003, God ordained that you sit here and listen to me and you know the truth.  You will not be able to say on that day, no one ever told me... No one ever told me. Urgency. Please don't walk out of here without repenting and trusting in Christ. To all of you believers, do you see the urgency of preaching this message to a lost world, the urgency of continuing to send mission teams to East Asia and other places, the places that have never heard the name of Christ. Do you see the urgency that you have this week to warn your neighbors and co-workers and friends and family members who aren't in Christ, that they should flee the wrath to come? Do you see the urgency? And do you see the celebration that you should have every day that God has rescued you from the wrath to come? “Thank you, Jesus, for saving me from this. Thank you that you drank this on the cross for me.” Hell is not a myth, it's not a joke, it's not a punch line. It's not a joke, it's an eternal reality. Do you see the need also to redeem the time? Time is moving on. Our salvation is nearer now that when I began this sermon. Do you realize that?

 Time is ticking, it's ticking, it's ticking, it's ticking for you. Redeem the time, make the most of it, because God is ordained in time that you will be saved or not. It’s time that does that, and therefore, it says, “In the time of my favor, I heard you, and the day of salvation I helped you.” I tell you now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation. If today you hear His voice, don't harden your heart, come to faith in Christ.

We're looking this morning at Matthew chapter 13, the parables of the Hidden Treasure and of the Pearl.  Early in the morning, January 24th, 1848, a man named James Marshall was strolling along the American Fork river in the hills of California. He was trying to improve a river powered sawmill that was there. He was digging around in the soil near a part of the mill when he noticed something unusual in the soil. He took a pen knife out of his pocket and started to scrape. The world was never the same again for he had discovered gold in the hills of California. The owner of the sawmill, John A Sutter, was a Swiss-born investor who hoped to make millions in lumber and in the natural resources of the area.  But this changed everything. Now he thought that he was going to make millions in gold, but the key was keeping the secret so that no one heard about it. That proved impossible. Rumors started to swirl that gold had been discovered in California, and he couldn't stop it. It wasn't long before the President of the United States was mentioning it in a State of the Union address. Within a month that kind of news could not be contained and held, and it wasn't long before the reports of the first prospectors came back, able to scoop up gold with teaspoons out-of-river beds and make a million in a short amount of time. Seven prospectors hired 50 Indians to work a claim and pulled 253 pounds of gold out in two months. The troubling part about these stories is that they were all true. That was the hard part, because once the rumors reached all over the world across to the east coast, even to Europe, to Hawaii to China, people started streaming to California. Selling everything that they owned for an ox-drawn cart and some provisions and for some prospecting tools and a little claim on a river somewhere in California.  People were willing to sell it all, for the possibility of treasure hidden in a field, somewhere. They travelled across the howling wasteland, across the deserts braving river crossings and winters, and long hard arduous travel. They got there and the overwhelming majority of them never made anything in gold at all. John Sutter himself who owned the mill where the gold was found was financially ruined by the claim. He'd owned 50,000 acres of land. It was all taken from him by squatters who then got lawyers to uphold their squatter's rights. He lost everything. There was treasure hidden in his field, and he ended up with nothing. People sold prosperous businesses in the east and came across and sold everything they had for nothing. 

But Jesus in our parable here, promises greater return and more certain.  He said that the kingdom of heaven is like a man who found treasure hidden in a field, and then, out of joy over the treasure, sold everything he had that he might buy that field and the treasure in it.   He likens it also to a merchant searching for fine pearls, and when he finds one worth everything that he has, he sells it all, so that he might buy that pearl. Jesus is here teaching us the value of the Kingdom of Heaven. Let's remember where we are in Matthew's gospel. The overall purpose of the Gospel is to portray Christ as the King of the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven is the place where God rules, and where his subjects are glad about it and delighted in it.  Jesus came, and proclaimed, “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, it's here now.” He began to explain and to teach and to show kingdom power through His miracles. When he gets to Matthew 13, He wants to explain in a deeper and fuller, richer and more mysterious way, the nature of the kingdom of heaven.

He said it's like seeds sown in different kinds of soil that has different kinds of results based on the nature of the heart receiving it. In some cases, it bears nothing, in other cases a little bit but then it dies out, and in some cases, 100, 60 and 30 times of what was sown. He also says that the kingdom advances, in a situation like a field sown with both wheats and weeds mixed together, and they're going to be mixed together. The progress of the kingdom will happen in a world where there are both believers and non-believers. It’s going to cause great torment and difficulty for the believers, but in the end, the torment is for those who will not believe. In the last sermon we saw that the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed or like yeast which starts out small, and then just explodes and grows and takes over everything. He's taught us already some things about the kingdom, but here he teaches us in these two parables one central lesson, the immense, the incomparable value of the kingdom.   It's worth everything that you have, it's worth everything that you are. 

The first is the parable of the treasure hidden in the field. You may ask why in the world would such an immense treasure be hidden in a field. In those days, the banks were untrustworthy. Marauding raiders would come in and take everything and go, like in the days of Gideon. Armies would come in. First it was the Assyrians, then the Babylonians, and then who knows who's coming next? What could you do with your possessions, to keep them safe, when these armies would come in? You really only had one thing you could do, go out into your property somewhere and dig a hole in the ground and stick it there.  Hide it there, so that it not be taken away from you. It's exactly what Jesus said the man who received the one talent did remember, he went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money so that it wouldn't be taken from him. But the master intended he go out and use it, do something with it. But you can see that this was a common issue, hiding treasure in a field, so that it not be taken. Then at night, if you needed some, you'd go out and dig some up, take what you needed, leave the rest, cover it back over. But over the years, perhaps the place of the treasure was forgotten. Maybe a couple was childless, they had no relatives, they died. The weeds grew over the field and changed hands a number of times, nobody even knew it was there.  Until one day, somebody maybe strolling through a particular part of the field that nobody had been in years or maybe working in the land a little bit, maybe he's in the employee of a master, starts to dig and prepare the field maybe for harvest and all of a sudden, as he's digging he hits something. Uncovers just enough of it to see what it is, to see the scope of the value, and he's overjoyed, he can't believe it, its treasure hidden in a field. Now, you'd say, "What happens next?”  There are some ethical issues here, right? Doesn't it belong to the owner of the field?" Well, according to Rabbinic law it belonged to whoever found it.  He was free to go and buy that field and only he would be the legal owner. He did not need to disclose that that treasure was there. Now the rules said if he was in the employment of someone else and he pulled it up out, it belonged to his master. He had done the work while he was on the job for his master, so he probably didn't fully pull the treasure out. He didn't have a full sense of the scope or the magnitude of the treasure, but he could tell already it was worth more than anything he had in the hut back home. So, go ahead and sell the hut, sell the clothes, sell it all, scrape together all the resources available that he might buy this patch of ground somewhere.  He was willing to sell everything he had, and for him it was all done out of extreme joy. This fact is very vital to this text. I think the most noteworthy aspect of the story is the incredible joy that the man had over his discovery. In The NASB, in verse 44 it says, “The Kingdom of Heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid again and from joy over it, he goes and sells all he has and buys that field.”  The joy is directly connected to the value of the treasure. He's not kicking rocks as he has to go sell everything, he's not upset. This is the best day of his life that he gets to sell everything, that he can buy this treasure. I think it very much like Jacob's attitude over the seven years that he had to serve to get Rachel. Genesis 29:20 says, “So Jacob served seven years to get Rachel, but they seemed like only a few days to him because of his love for her.” There was delight in this. We go from extreme joy, to extreme commitment. Everything goes. Everything — whatever is necessary to obtain that field.  So that's the essence of the story of The Pearl... The hidden treasure. 

The pearl of great price is about the same story with a subtle difference.   In this case, in verse 45, there's a merchant roaming the earth. He's searching for pearls and as an expert, he knows what he's looking for. The Greek word “merchant” relates to essentially the sailors that go out on the sea, and travel to find merchandise that they can bring back and sell at a profit. For example, in Psalm 107:23, it says merchants went out on the sea in ships. But it isn't just those that sail. Anyone that travels or roams a great distance is a traveling merchant looking for things. There were traveling caravans, for example, the Midianites who carried spices and incense across the desert, or traders who brought tribute to Solomon from distant minor kings and kingdoms.  There were royal merchants sent out by Solomon to purchase fine horses in Egypt.  The people of Tyre were especially known as merchants. They would send out their ships all over the Mediterranean with cargoes of spices, gold, silver, and such to accumulate wealth. Marco Polo traveled along the Silk Road into China, trying to find things he could sell back. Christopher Columbus was looking for a different route to Asia because the Muslims held the entire coastline of Africa along the East coast of Africa and it was dangerous to take that route, so he was looking for a Western route to India for trade.  There was Magellan’s search through what is now the Straits of Magellan. It took 39 days to get through this area and at any moment one could be crashed, dashed against the rocks. Magellan finally got through to a sea that he called the The Peaceful Sea which became Pacific Ocean.  Little did he realize once he had crossed that section of South America, that he had another 98 days and 12,000 miles of interminable ocean which lay ahead in order to finish sailing around the globe. What was his motive? Personal glory, I'm sure, but also money and trade. So also, this man, this merchant in the story, is a merchant to find pearls. He's been all over his region, all over the known pearl world. He knows what he's looking for since he's an expert in pearls. 

Pearls were deeply desired perhaps, I think, at that point, more than any other physical thing on Earth. Pearls were more valuable than any other physical thing on earth. They were believed to be produced by dew from heaven and many myths came around about their origins. Pearls are actually formed when a little particle gets inside an oyster, a certain type of oyster. Little by little, the creature covers it with something called nacre. It just gets an iridescent sheen on it, and it grows. There are different kinds of pearls, there are different kinds of quality, but they were very, very rare back then. 100 years ago, there developed a way of artificially producing pearls, of cultivating them, and so, with the law of supply and demand, the price went down. Many of you perhaps are wearing genuine pearls today that would have been priceless 2000 years ago, but now, even though they're every bit as high quality and perfect, they're not as expensive because they're easier to produce. Back then you had to have certain kinds of oysters, in certain kinds of places, and with certain kinds of people that could dive down and get them, and only a few oysters would actually have a pearl. Of those, only one every ten years or so would be worth buying and selling at that level. They were incredibly valuable. When pearl fever reached its peak in the Roman Empire, the Roman historian, Suetonius, said that a Roman general Vitellius financed an entire military campaign by selling just one of his mother's pearl earrings.  Pearls were incredibly valuable. There's a story of Mark Antony and Cleopatra. She was trying to overwhelm the Roman conqueror with a sense of the antiquity and wealth of Egypt. She said, "I'm going to put on a banquet wealthier and more expensive than any you've ever been to in your life." And she did because at the height of the banquet, they brought a tray and when it was uncovered, there was nothing on it except a goblet of wine vinegar and a magnificent set of pearls. She took one of the pearls and dissolved it in the vinegar and drank it. Historian estimates the pearl that she drank was worth $10 million. At that point, he said, "You got me. I can't top that. Never seen anything like that." He was aghast.

The immense value of pearls. The kingdom of heaven in verse 45 is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. He's got an eye for detail; he knows what he's looking for. He knows when there's an imperfection, if the color is not quite right, if it's not perfectly spherical. He's willing at this point when he sees this pearl, he knows he's found at last, what he's been looking for all his professional life, the perfect pearl. Perfect in size, more immense probably than he could ever imagine. Perfect in its spherical nature and its color, its iridescence, everything just right. He says this pearl is worth everything that he owns. All of the other pearls that he has ever bought in his life he will gladly, gladly, trade them to get this one pearl. In Verse 46, “When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.” When you buy something, for the most part, you don't buy it reluctantly. You decide that the thing you're going to get is better to you than the money you give to get it. You'd rather have the car, the house, the clothes, the groceries, the candy bar, whatever it is, than the money it takes to get it. There's a joy in the purchase or there should be anyway. This man is delighted to trade everything he has to obtain this single pearl. What's the difference between the two stories? I think the first man is just ambling through the field and kind of stumbles on the treasure or maybe is working in the field and uncovers it, never was expecting it, never looking for it and then just comes across it. I think this man is like somebody who really doesn't know what he's looking for in life. He doesn't know what's going to satisfy him, but when he sees it, then he knows. He's not searching for God, he's not looking for God, but God is looking for him, and at last, at a certain moment, he sees the value of the kingdom of heaven and He's willing, gladly willing to sell everything, but he wasn't seeking it to begin with.

In the other case, there's a man who is looking for something. He knows what he's looking for, but he just can't find it. He has looked everywhere and at last he finds it. And it's the pearl of great value, and he is willing to trade everything. We have in effect two parables telling the same thing, the immense value of the kingdom of heaven. I think it's one central lesson.  The pearl is the treasure. They're one and the same and they represent the kingdom of heaven and specifically they represent Christ Himself. Listen to what Richard Sib says, “Christ Jesus is the great Pearl, he's the peerless Pearl. He's the pearl of infinite value, who therefore becomes a ransom for many millions that were in bondage.” Christ then is this Pearl.  He is the treasure. Paul himself found Christ to be the treasure and the pearl worth everything that he'd had in his life. Philippians 3 so beautifully depicts Paul's personal testimony to the truth of this parable of the treasure and of the pearl. He said, “I’d be willing to trade everything, to sell everything that I have, that I might have this one thing. Knowing Christ. Knowing him in his suffering, knowing him in his glory. That I might know Christ and be found in him, that is the one thing I want in life, nothing else.”   Christ is the treasure; he is the pearl. Colossians 2:2-3 says, “In order that they may know the mystery of God, namely Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” Christ is the treasure; he is the pearl. 

How may we obtain the treasure and the pearl? One of the parables has already answered this. We obtain by believing the message that's preached. By believing the proclamation of the kingdom of heaven. That's what the parable of the seed and the soils tells us.  The message is taken in the ear, weighed by faith, found to be of surpassing value, such that the person says nothing else that I've ever heard, no religion, no philosophy, no material possession, no earthly ambition is worth this to me.  That's how you obtain it. By simple faith in hearing the message. Jesus said in Mark 1:15, “The time has come, the kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news.” By repentance and faith, we acquire the treasure. By repentance and faith, we obtain the pearl. The kingdom is a free gift. It says in Luke 12:32, “Do not be afraid little flock,” said Jesus, “your Father is delighted to give you the kingdom.” To give you the kingdom, it is the Father's good pleasure. He enjoys giving you the kingdom as a gift. A free gift. And yet, the two parables that we're studying today seem to imply that there's a sacrifice or a commitment made on our part. The kingdom is the most expensive thing you could ever obtain. It literally costs you everything you have to get it. 

That brings us to the question, what must we part with? In verse 44, “He goes out and sells all that he has and buys that field.” In verse 46, “When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.” The question is, what must we part with? I'm going to give you two simple answers and a deeper, perhaps more complicated answer. What must we part with to get this treasure? What must we part with to get the pearl?  First, the simple answer is, you must part with sin.  It's impossible for you to treasure sin and get this treasure hid in the field. You can't have both. You can't treasure sin and get the pearl too. It's impossible. All sin must be sold forever.  Richard Sibbes put it this way. "He that retains any one sin can never get this pearl. He that keeps in his heart but one beloved pleasure or profit of this life, let him read, let him pray, hear, profess never so much. The devil hath him sure by the leg or by the wing.  As sure as if the whole man were in his hands. For he will willingly allow the man to go and use any good exercises, knowing they add to the man's damnation, so long as he retains a secret delight and liking to any lust, let it never be so small." Now, this does not mean sinless perfection, we know that. That's why Paul says in Philippians 3, “I press on. I press on to take hold.”  There's not a sinless perfection being taught here. Philippians 3, “Not that I have already been made perfect.” No, that's not what it's teaching, but it has to do with a delight in the sin, a yearning for it. It's your secret treasure and pleasure, and you won't give it up. Well then you can't have this pearl. You can't have this treasure in the field.   Psalm 66:18 says, “If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.” He's not going to give you the treasure, he's not going to give you the pearl. So that's simple answer number one. You have to get rid of sin. You have to say, "No, I will not cherish sin ever again." Does that mean you'll never sin again? No, of course you'll be deceived, and stumble, and fall. We all stumble in many ways, says James, but there's a difference between stumbling and cherishing. It's a different matter. 

The second simple answer I want to give you is not only do you have to get rid of sin or let go of sin, you must also let go of anything that would hinder you from coming to Christ. Anything at all. Everything is sold, let's put it in terms that we understand. Even good things that hinder us from coming to Christ must be disposed of. Some bridges are burned when we come to Christ. Some friendships will never be the same again. Relationships with non-Christian relatives, parents, or children will never be the same again because you came to Christ. These are in themselves good things, but you're willing to turn your back on them for the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ. These things have been given up in favor of knowing Christ. Our career is sold, perhaps, it will never be the same again; you may never have as many advantages and opportunities for advancement now because you are a Christian. These are good things in of themselves, but we're turning our backs on them that we might follow Christ. Even pastimes, hobbies, possessions sold in one sense, if they have hindered us from coming to Christ must be given up. Those are the two simple answers. We get rid of sin and anything that would hinder us from coming to Christ. Now, we get complicated.

 In what sense do we have to sell everything? Well, what do you have to give up? And the answer is everything and nothing. Let's talk nothing first. You can't buy the kingdom. Selling all your possessions and giving to the poor doesn't get you to heaven. God is actually brutally offended if you try to do so. Nothing in all your possessions, nothing in your hut is equal in value to this treasure. If you think, "I can go buy this,” you are mistaken. It's far... A far greater worth than anything you have. You can’t buy it. So, in one sense, you can't sell everything to obtain this kingdom. It's not of equal value. But in another sense, I think the text is calling us to something here.  I guess the question is, do I have to become, and this is what's on your mind perhaps, a wandering beggar to go to heaven? Do I have to literally sell all of my earthly possessions in order to follow Christ? Don't be so quick in answering because you remember the rich young ruler. Remember when he came and said, "What must I do to get eternal life?" He said, "Obey the commandments." And he said, "I've done this." Jesus said, "One thing you lack. Sell everything. Give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come follow me." We are answering too quickly, when we say, "Of course not. Of course, he isn't calling us to be wandering beggars in order to go to Heaven." St. Francis of Assisi, 13th century, in his childhood and growing up, was a popular youth who lived a carefree life. He was the son of a wealthy Italian cloth merchant. He was headed for a successful life as a knight, when suddenly Christ got a hold of him. He was converted through illness to faith in Christ. After that, he left home clothed in a ragged cloak and a rope that he had taken from a scarecrow. He went and begged from the rich and gave to the poor. As a matter of fact, in most Roman Catholic orders, people take a vow of poverty in order to join them. Is this what it means to sell everything? Prosperous evangelicals in America answer this one too quickly, I think. We forget that Christ lived this way. “If you want to follow me,” Jesus said, "Foxes have holes. Birds of the air have nests, and I have no place to sleep tonight." We forget that John the Baptist lived this way, out in the desert eating locusts and wild honey.  Now you wonder where I'm going with this. Is this required to go to heaven? Do I have to live in the desert and eat locusts and wild honey to go to heaven? We forget also, in Hebrews 11, "The men of whom the world was not worthy,” lived this way, wandering about in deserts, and mountains, and caves, and holes of the ground. So, I think we're too quick if we say that God would never ask that of anyone. Elijah lived this way.

 I think it goes a little deeper than this. I think what happens is, in your mind, you have to be willing to. I mean genuinely willing. I got this image, driving around near where I am, they're removing some trees to put in a house or something, I'm not sure.  I noticed that some of the trees had orange spray paint on them. If I were a tree in that area and I had orange spray paint on me, I'd be worried. I'd start to notice a trend. “All my friends with orange spray paint, they're all gone, and I alone am left. Here comes the woodsman. It's not looking good for a tree with orange spray paint in that particular region.” I guess what I'm saying is that everything in your life has orange spray paint on it. Everything. And the woodsman comes when he chooses and said, "This is mine, I'm taking it." And you can't say to him, "You can't do that. You can't do that." What would that include?  Well, how about your native land? Living here in America. Is that sold? Yeah, it is. God said to Abraham, leave your country and your people and go to the land I will show you. So, living here in America has got orange spray paint on it. He might call you to leave. How about earthly possessions? Yes. Sell your possessions, Jesus said, give to the poor, provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. Someday you'll have a conviction, something will come over you, and you'll be led by the Spirit to sell things that are valuable to you, so that you can in some way advance to the kingdom of heaven. Is that within the purview of following Christ? Yes, absolutely. How about your earthly career? Is it sold? Could he come and say, I want you to leave this lucrative career and I want you to go serve me in this or that way. Yes. Orange spray paint on each one of these things. He has the right to come do it. How about your earthly reputation? Suppose he comes and says, I want you to go to witness to your boss. “Wait a minute. They like me here, they really do. I mean, I've got good friendships here. My co-workers think well of me.” They don't think as well of you as you think; they really aren't thinking about you, I've learned.  But you think, "Oh, what a good relationship I have with everyone here. If I witness, I will lose that." It's got orange spray paint on it. He can come and say, go witness to that person over there. You know that if they don't convert, they will treat you poorly perhaps from then on, and they do actually treat you poorly. I've seen it myself. Does he have the right to ask that of you? Yes, he does. How about your children? So, does he have the right to come and claim your children? Yes, he does. Sometime later God tested Abraham and said, “Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and offer him up as a sacrifice.” Everything in your life is his. He has the right over it, he has the right of claiming it, and you would be delighted to give it up. That's the whole point. 

 “Out of joy he sold everything he had, that he might have that treasure.” What must we give up? Everything evil, all sin, and anything that would hinder you from coming to Christ.  Everything in your life as Christ demands it from you. Now, you say, well, how do I know when he's coming? When does the orange spray paint moment come, and the thing gets cut down? That's not for me to say. That's something that the Lord does, but He does do that. The more and more you grow in Christ, the more you'll start seeing some of these things get claimed, and the trees get removed.

Final question, what do we gain? The gain is infinite. Sibbes said, "We shall think ourselves no losers in this trade. We shall have Christ and with him all things. And therefore, Christ in this life promises a return of a hundredfold. And it stands on God's honor not to make us losers when we trade with him." You're not going to look back and say, "Boy, that was the biggest mistake I ever made." In no way will that ever happen to you. On Judgement Day you'll not look back and say, "All the things I sacrificed. That was a waste, I shouldn't have done it." You will never say that for it's on God's honor not to make you a loser when you trade with him. Blessings of the kingdom you'll receive. Full forgiveness of all sins. A place with your name on it at the wedding banquet of the Lamb. You don't want to miss that one folks, you want to be there. To have a place reserved for you, a place in heaven, a face-to-face fellowship with Christ, forever, and in the meantime a fruitful, worthwhile, eternally significant life here on earth. The indwelling spirit to keep you company, and convict you, and guide you along the way. His law written in your hearts, a transformation of your own nature. What a deal.  The treasure worth everything. And best of all, personal fellowship with Jesus Christ himself, the king of the kingdom of heaven. 

This brings us to understand true conversion. What does it mean then to be saved?  I understood more about this from John Piper than probably anybody else. This is, I think, the signature text for Piper's Desiring God. If any of you have read that, this is where it comes from, I think, more than any other text in the Bible. John Piper teaches us that there are two great drives in the universe. One great drive is for God to be glorified above all things in his universe. That he would be valued and held in honor and in esteem above everything else that he has created. That's one great drive in the universe. The second is yours. Your great drive is to be contented, joyful, and happy in your life. The two of them meet together in the treasure hidden in the field.  What ends up happening at the moment of conversion is at last your eyes are open. You see the value of Jesus Christ. You see that there's nothing else in the universe worth him to you. So, God becomes most glorified in you, when you are delighted and satisfied in him, for the joy set before you, you take Christ no matter what it brings from you. This is conversion.

If this hasn't happened to you, if you still see greater value to anything else other than Christ, then you're not converted. Whatever religious ceremonies and other things you're going through, you've not been transformed internally. Christ is not of greatest value to you. Piper put it this way, "Conversion is what happens to the heart, when Christ becomes for us a treasure chest of holy joy. Saving faith is the heartfelt conviction that Christ is both solidly reliable and supremely desirable." He is something you can build your life on like a foundation. But he's also something appealing and enticing like a treasure and a pearl. These two come together when you're converted. This joy is so great, it begins to expel other pleasures and joys, so that it becomes the central focus of your life. I can tell you right now, no one will be checking the score of a ball game at the wedding banquet of the Lamb. It's not going to happen. I don't think there'll be a ball game. It'll just be the wedding banquet of the lamb, and you won't mind. "Boy, I wished we had ball games up here." You won't be wondering or wishing. The wedding banquet of the Lamb will be enough. You'll not be wondering how your mutual funds are doing as you walk down the streets of the New Jerusalem. It'll be enough to have Christ.

Similarly, here on earth, the perfection of conversion is to be totally consumed by the joy of knowing Christ. To realize there is nothing greater than knowing and being known by Christ. In a moment you're going to have an opportunity to sing, “All I once held dear, built my life upon, all this world reveres and wants to own. All I once thought gained, I have counted loss, spent and worthless, now, compared to this one thing. Knowing you Jesus.” That’s from Philippians 3. Paul was converted, wasn't he? That's what conversion is. 

What application can we take with this? First let me speak to those of you who don't know yourself to be converted. We've been talking economics today, and talking about value and worth, right? There's a basic law of economics called the law of supply and demand. The greater demand there is for something and the lower supply, the higher the price. Conversely, the other way, if there's not much demand for something and tons of it like sand, it's got very little price, very little value. If I came and said, "Hey, I've got a handful of sand I'd like to give you,” I’m not going to sell much of it. The price is low. If there's something of great, intense desirability and not much of it is available, the price will be high.  I want to ask you something. On Judgement Day, what will be the value and price of conversion and of forgiveness of sins, and frankly, of your soul, on that day? What would be the value to you? The desirability, as perhaps an angel is assigned to bring you to the brink of the lake of fire and just before he pushes you in, says, "Right now, of all of the earthly collection that you once had at your disposal, no longer, but at one point you had it at your disposal. What of those things would you hold back and not give at this moment for Christ?" Nothing, nothing. Having Christ at that moment will be infinitely desirable. How about availability, however? No. Today is the day of salvation. Now is the time. The offer's available now and today, and not then, and so therefore there will be no grace available on Judgement Day, no opportunity for justification by faith. There'll be no faith possibly, you'll be seeing your judge. Infinite price, because infinite desirability, no availability. Today is the day for you to be converted. Today is the day for you to sell everything you have, that you might have this treasure and this pearl. 

But what about those of you that are Christians? I want you to set your heart on your treasure, for where your treasure is, that's where your heart is going to be.   Focus on Christ, set your heart on him, let him be more valuable to you than anything in the universe. Let your joy over your treasure purify lesser joys. There are other things in this world, but as you focus on Christ, you start to see that everything's from Jesus. Eating a meal, being with your family, walking down a pretty mountain path and looking — It's all Christ to you, because He gave it. It purifies your lesser joys. Fill your days and your speech accordingly. Talk about your treasure. After that merchant bought the treasure, do you think he boasted about it? You better believe it. "What a deal I made. Look at this. Look where I'm living now, and I got all my old stuff back anyway. Just put it in hock and then bought it back. And now I've got all this profit. It's incredible. I've got it all." Yes, he boasted. Boast about Christ. Boast about him as your treasure, your pleasure. He's worth boasting over. Let me talk to you one more moment about sin. Let love for this pleasure drive out sin from your life. Piper put it this way, "Sin is what you do when your heart is no longer satisfied with Christ." When Christ isn't enough for you, then you sin. Oh, don't let it be. Let Christ be your treasure and your pearl.

In so many ways, I am in awe of Jesus Christ, He just takes my breath away. The things that He does are astonishing, and we know of his mighty miracles. We know He spoke to the wind and the waves, and they were completely still, and we know how He raised his friend Lazarus from the dead, dead though he was four days, yet that word of power that he was able to speak.  But what takes my breath away in this passage is the perfection of his teaching. He's the greatest teacher that ever lived. John Calvin in his commentary, the preface to his commentary to Romans, said that what he was seeking was loosed brevity, in other words, clarity and brief-ness, to coin a phrase, that everything should be made as Albert Einstein said,  as simple as possible, and not simpler. Abraham Lincoln in his Gettysburg address was able, somehow, to capture what was being fought over in the Civil War better than anyone that had ever seen it up to that point, and he did it in 271 words. He was able to capture what was going on, that there was a test of our governmental system going on and that was what was at stake. The apostle Paul in his preaching asked the Colossians church to pray that he would make it clear as he should. 

But none of these teachers have compared to Jesus Christ who, in 17 words in the Greek language encapsulates all of human history in a homely, home-maker parable in which a woman is baking bread.  Seventeen words, and He gets all of human history together. Not only that, but He gets my history as well, what's happened in my life since the time I heard and believed the gospel. He's got the two together, both the individual and the global in one little homely kitchen parable. Only Jesus could do that. "The Kingdom of Heaven is like yeast that a woman took and hid in a large amount of flour until it permeated the whole lump." There it is. There's human history. It doesn't sound like it to me. We must come like spiritual beggars and humble ourselves and say, "Lord, Jesus what does it mean?" The parable of the mustard seed, the parable of the yeast, how can we understand these things? Once the spirit has come and has opened our eyes, we are in a great position to understand better than any generation that has ever lived because we have seen the fulfillment of these two parables over the last 2000 years, then at last we can wonder and be amazed at the teacher who sits before us, and instructs us on world history. The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his garden, though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet, when it grows, it becomes the largest of garden plants and the birds of the air, come and nest in its branches.  The kingdom of heaven is like a little amount of yeast that a woman took and mixed or hid into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough. All of human history and my personal history too, wrapped up in these two little parables. 

The one message of the two parables is that the Kingdom starts small, and grows huge, as a matter of fact, dominates in the end. That's what they mean together. The mustard seed is a proverb. The Jewish people knew that the mustard seed was proverbial for something small. "If you have faith as small as a mustard seed," Jesus said, "You can say to this mountain, move from here to there, and it'll move." Jesus Himself said, "Though, it is the smallest of all your seeds." The point is, it was the smallest of the seeds that they used to plant in the garden; all the others were larger, significantly larger, and yet, this one grows to dominate in an impressive way. Within that seed is the genetic code for explosive growth. God ordained seeds from the very beginning in Genesis 1, there would be seed-bearing trees, fruit with seed in it, animals would have seed, we would have seed, there was an explosion of growth. “Fill the earth, subdue it, rule over it, populate it.” All of it built into the seed, the genetic code only recently being understood, and we'll never finally understand it. So, it was with Jesus, what they call this one solitary life, within his life, within his example, and within his teaching and even more, in His sacrificial bloody death on the cross, and His resurrection, there in seed form is the Kingdom of Heaven.

With the proclamation of that life and that death and that resurrection comes a kingdom which will someday conquer the world. In the end, it's the largest of all your garden plants, and it becomes a tree so that the birds of the air can come and take rest in its branches. The Kingdom starts small, seemingly from nothing and grows to an imposing height. Now, the leaven. The leaven starts small in one corner and it comes to final and total complete permeation. Leaven, or yeast, is frequently seen to be a symbol of evil.  Jesus said in Matthew 16:6, "Be careful, be on your guard against the Yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” By that He meant their bad teaching, their false teachings, be careful about it. But actually yeast is not necessarily a symbol of evil, it's really a symbol of permeation, a symbol of spreading, many times, connected to something evil as Paul does in Galatians 5:9, "A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough," meaning you get this bad idea, of legalism and circumcision, it's going to affect your whole faith, it's going to affect everything.  It really is a picture of permeation. In the Old Testament, bread with yeast included in it was part of the Levitical offering in Leviticus 7. Yeast is not intrinsically evil. To me, the parable proves it, the Kingdom of Heaven, is like yeast, therefore it can't be evil because the king heaven is good, and therefore, if it's like yeast, then the yeast is not intrinsically evil. The issue is spreading, it's permeation really in a kind of a hidden sort of way.  Yeast is a one-celled fungus that connects and bumps into other things and starts to generate carbon dioxide gas and ultimately alcohol if it's left long enough. That's fermentation and it just spreads through one side of the lump. Jesus is lavish in his picture here. The housewife took and mixed this little amount of yeast, just hid it in the corner and just let it do its work. How much is 40 liters? Imagine 22 liters bottles of flour poured into a big vat and mixed up, and a pinch of yeast from the last leaven lump put it in and pretty soon the entire lump has risen, it's permeated. It's a picture of permeation. The central lesson of both these parables, is growth from small and insignificant to imposing and dominant.

Why two parables? What's going on?  What does the one teach that is different than the other?  I think that one teaches a showy display of constant progress. You can look and see it growing. You can come in the garden and you can look and it's six inches tall, then it's a foot tall and pretty soon it's five feet tall and it just keeps growing. You can see its progress. In the end, it's very big and imposing all over the place. The other is a hidden internal mysterious growth.  A permeation really that just kind of spreads. You don't really know what's going on and the true story is really quite hidden, and you can't see much evidence of the permeation. The two parables together give the whole picture of the growth of the kingdom of heaven. In one sense, it can be marked and measured. We can see milestones along the way. In another sense its internal, hidden and mysterious and will only be fully understood at the end. That's how I understand in a big picture these two parables.

Let's try to get in and see what's really going on. The parables would have been in their key message a shock to the Jews. Why? They were expecting a big glorious kingdom. They just didn't expect to have to wait for it like this. They didn't expect a humble, despicable, lowly start to that kingdom, and they didn't expect that it would be internal and spiritual. They will really be kind of shocked and stunned at the kingdom that Jesus is preaching here. They expected world domination, and they had reasons for it. There were prophecies, for example, like the one in the book of Daniel. There's a huge statue that represents all these Gentile kingdoms — the head of gold, and the chest and arms of silver, and the belly and the thighs of bronze, and legs of iron and then the feet of partly iron, partly clay. The whole statute that Nebuchadnezzar dreamed about represents human history; it represents all of these Gentile kingdoms. Suddenly there's a stone cut out, but not by human hands, and it flies through the air and strikes the statue at the feet and they crumble.   They just chaff on the threshing floor, and a wind blows them away, but the stone cut out but not by human hands grows until it becomes an impressive kingdom that takes over everything.  "In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed nor will it be left to another people, it will crush all those kingdoms [all those Gentile kingdoms]. We understand clearly, "It will crush all those kingdoms, and bring them to an end but it will itself endure forever.” This is the meaning of the vision of the rock cut out of the mountain but not by human hands." They expected a Jewish world-wide kingdom in which the Son of David would sit on the throne and all of the Gentile enemies would come and basically lick the dust at their feet. That's going to be exciting and enjoyable when you are a first-century Jew and you're licking the dust of the Roman Centurions feet and hating every minute: You feel like you're in your Promised Land, why should you have to pay taxes? Why should you have to bow down to these tax collectors? Why should you have to follow rules and regulations made by an emperor who's never been here. This was their land, given to them by God. But there are prophecies that someday the Gentiles will come and lick the dust at the feet of the Son of David. It said, “lick the dust.” It was a big theme in Jewish prophecy. For example, in Psalm 72 written by King Solomon, speaking of the Son of David, this king, this Messiah, "In his day, the righteous will flourish, prosperity will bound till the moon is no more. He will rule from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth. The desert tribes will bow before Him and His enemies will lick the dust."

There it is, Psalm 72:9, "The kings of Tarshish and of distant shores will bring tribute to him, the kings of Sheba and Seba will present him gifts, all kings will bow down to him and all nations will serve him." They were ready for that; they were ready for an impressive worldwide dominating kingdom in which the Gentiles would come and lick the dust. They were ready for another prophecy too. Zechariah 8:23, "This is what the Lord Almighty says, in those days, ten men from all languages, and nations will take firm hold, of one Jew, by the hem of His robe and say, ‘Let us go with you because we've heard that God is with you.’” Oh, they were looking forward to that, too. They were looking forward to being part of that Messianic Kingdom and it was going to be impressive with world domination. They were so weary of the Assyrians, and the Babylonians and the Persians, and the Medes, and the Greeks and the Romans whoever comes next, weary of it, they wanted a king.

They were ready of a king, but they weren’t ready for the kingdom that He was living and proclaiming, they weren't ready for that. They were wondering when Jesus began to preach, "Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand," wondered if the time had come, especially intrigued by his miracles. Now, that was never really, I think, in their mind, that the King would be a miracle worker for David and Solomon never did that. So that's an enhancement. But we're troubled by the way He's living His life; we're troubled by the Kingdom. It's so quiet, it's so humble, He gets along too well with the Romans. This is not what we had in mind. He was even healing one of their centurion servants, what is going on here? He's not quarreling and crying out in the street and rabble-rousing and getting an army together, he's not doing what they expected. He spoke of redeeming Gentiles, not of destroying them. Because of the mysteries of the kingdom, that's why He told these parables, that they would understand the kingdom isn't like what they thought. It's going to start small, and even contemptible, in some ways it's going to be repugnant. Christ was born of humble origins, born as a baby, raised in a rejected part of Israel in Nazareth: "Can anything good come from Nazareth?" said the Jews. He wasn't trained in the halls of power; He wasn't instructed in Jerusalem by the Pharisees and the best teachers. He was of a humble origin and He carried on a confusing ministry. He challenged people, "Follow me and let the dead bury their own dead, follow me and you may not know where you're going to lay your head tonight, follow me and your parents will reject you or your children and you may die."  They didn't understand this, this didn't make any sense. Even worse He was clearly on the outs with the Jewish leaders, rejected by them. They hated him, and they it seemed were plotting against him. They had already decreed that anybody who claimed that he was the Messiah, would be thrown out of the Synagogue. This isn't what they had in mind. “Why are you dividing our people? We're supposed to be united, and then taking on the Gentiles.” They didn't understand. Look at your followers, Jesus, a motley band of ignoramuses, of what we would call blue collar workers. Galilean fishermen who don't even know the simple basics of biblical instruction. They're workers and even worse look who is following you: tax collectors, prostitutes, sinners. This is not what they had in mind. It's going to get worse. He gets rejected and scourged and nailed to a Roman cross, with the ultimate insult, "This is Jesus, the King of the Jews," over his head as He bleeds to death, as an executed criminal. The Jews cannot understand, they can't accept it. Ugly, ugly, ugly the beginning of this kingdom, not what they had in mind. A small band of women, John standing there at the foot of the cross, that's it. A very, very tough way to leave the world, a very ugly picture.

"Who has believed our message," said Isaiah, "And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up before Him like a tender shoot and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him. He was despised and rejected, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering, like one from whom men hide their faces, He was despised. And we esteemed Him not.” That means we rejected him. We thought nothing of him, he was low and despised, this tender root out of dry ground. So, the kingdom was going to start from despicable origins, lowly and despised, and it wasn't just the Jews who despised him.  When Christianity began to make its progress and they began to preach a dead Jewish Messiah on the cross, the message made no sense. It was foolishness to the Gentiles, and they didn't understand. Celsus, who Origen wrote against in the third century, a bitter foe of the Gospel, attacked the very concept that God would send His son in such a low in contemptible way to the despised Jews in one corner of the world. This is what he wrote, "God is good and beautiful and blessed and that in the best and most beautiful degree. But if he come down among men, He must undergo a change and a change from good to evil, from virtue to vice, from happiness to misery, and from best to worst. Who then would make choice of such a change?   It is the nature of a mortal indeed to undergo change and re-molding, but of an immortal to remain the same and unaltered. God then would not admit of such a change. God would never become a man and if he did, just for a joke," that's what he said. "If he's like Jupiter coming to the Athenians he sure wouldn't come to the Jews in that corner of the world," so said Celsus. His ways are not understandable to us, His ways, are not our ways.

For the kingdom to start like a tiny seed stuck in the ground, or like a little amount of yeast off in the edge makes no sense. To me this is great encouragement for every generation, especially for ours, that God delights in small things. He delights in humble beginnings; He delights in just a conversation sparking at all. Just a thought that popped in someone's head and then look where it's gone.   God delights in small things and doing great things with small things. We forget that the universe is made up of atoms and they're really small. God delights in small things, in putting them in order, and building a history out of it. And so, Zechariah 4:10, "Who despises the day of small things?" Yet we need constant encouragement because the Kingdom of Heaven never seems equal to the task, does it? It always seems overwhelmed by the obstacles and the odds. We have to hear 1 Corinthians 15:58, "Therefore my dear brothers stand firm, let nothing move you, always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” You need to be told that, don't you? Do you ever get discouraged in the Christian life? I need to be told my labor in the Lord is not in vain, because it sure seems like it, sometimes. All of us as Christians, we need to hear that. Hebrews 12:12 says, "Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and your weak knees," because the kingdom doesn't seem to match up. We're wasting our time here.  In one 24-hour period almost a quarter million people in one day are added to the world population. People think, "We're losing ground. There's a sense of urgency. Is the kingdom up to the task?" What do these parables tell you?  Yes, the Kingdom of Heaven will permeate the entire dough. The Gospel of the Kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.

The lesson of the mustard seed is outward invisible growth. Jesus said in Matthew 5:14, "You are the light of the world, you're a city on a hill which cannot be hidden. The growth of the Kingdom can't be hidden, it's going to leave markers along the way in history. It's going to start small, but we're going to see marks of its progress along the way.   It started with 120 believers in the upper room.  That's a small church. 120 believers in the upper room and then the Spirit poured out and in one day, 3000 were added to their number that day, just like that. Now that's outward, visible change. Suddenly boom, 3000. Pretty soon the number grew to 5000 men, it kept growing and growing. Soon the call came to send missionaries to Gentile regions.  The Gospel spread along Asia Minor. Back up the roads of conquest where Alexander the Great and the Roman Legions had marched down to conquer Palestine. The Gospel went back up those pipelines across to the man from Macedonia who said, "Come over and help us.” The Gospel was preached there, in Philippi, and Thessalonica. It starts to spread, it starts to move, it starts to conquer. So that by the time Paul writes in Romans, he says, "It's always been my ambition to preach where nobody's heard of Christ, but I'm having trouble finding that place these days," because the gospel had come from Jerusalem all the way around to what is modern Yugoslavia, right across from Rome.   Soon the gospel would be there. Within two and half to three centuries, the Gospel would have so permeated and so dominated in the Roman Empire that Constantine would declare himself to be a Christian. Incredible. What a marker in history. The progress that this Galilean carpenter, executed on a Roman cross, has made. If you had told Pontius Pilate, what was going to happen in the next three centuries, "The man you're about to kill will someday be the God worshipped by the Emperor of Rome," what do you think he would have said to you? "You're insane." It didn't stop there. It continued to grow and to explode. Missionaries traveling. The Norsemen coming down, the Vikings coming to faith in Christ. It continued to spread, clear markers of progress. They left behind physical remnants: cathedrals built, art, hospitals, works of theology and writings. Clear markers of the progress of the gospel. The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that just explodes, and everyone can see where it's heading, a visible legacy of Christianity.

But the kingdom of heaven is also like yeast which a woman took and hid, it says, in a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough. So yes, there's an outward invisible marker of the progress, but there's an internal mysterious transformation. It says, "The Kingdom of Heaven is like yeast which a woman took and hid.” The Greek word is “enkrupto”, from which we get “to encrypt”. A hidden thing, a mysterious thing. So, there's this hidden nature of the kingdom. You can't see what it's doing, but it's making progress all the way through. I think this individually describes your own salvation if you're a Christian, doesn't it? You hear the Gospel, maybe John 3:16 something as simple as that. You read a tract, and all of a sudden it takes hold in your life. Little by little, it starts to conquer everything. It conquers the way you talk, it conquers the way you dress, it conquers the way you think, the way you make your living, the way you pray, what you hope for, what you dream, it conquers everything. It just starts to permeate within.

Jesus said in John Chapter 3, that the wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound, but you can't tell where it comes from and where it is going. So is everyone who's born by the spirit, that internal transformation changing everything, if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation. The old is gone, everything has become new. All things have changed, and so that from the inside out, it permeates and conquers. The biggest grief of your life is that it hasn't conquered everything yet. But it will someday. Isn't that glorious? It's going to permeate everything, and there'll be no sin left: no wickedness, no violence, no temptation, no pull toward evil. No, as it says in Romans 7, "sin living in me that does it," all gone.

The Gospel will have permeated everything, and you will be glorious and perfect. Amen and amen, the glory of the internal transformation, but you can't see it from the outside. You look like the same person but there's something different about you, an internal transformation that conquers everything. Jesus was also talking about the world, wasn't he? He had his eyes not just on the individual, but on the whole world. It would be down in the catacombs, under the streets of Rome where nobody could see it. Celsus was frustrated. He said, "You know something, they won't talk about this, when the masters and better learned people are around. But when everyone's gone, they'll start to talk to your children and then kind of take on the weak and the lowly and share with them."

The gospel spreads through the slaves, and the weak, and the despised and the lowly, and it just takes over, permeates, influences, just by hearing. Sometimes, the gospel is gossiped almost like news.

I love the story of John Bunyan's conversion. John Bunyan was a tinker by trade, went around sharpening knives and fixing pots and pans which was obviously not a lucrative employment.  But he went around, and he was in a kitchen, sharpening some knives, fixing some pots and pans one day when he heard three or four women. This is what he says, he overheard, "Three or four poor women sitting at a door in the room and talking about the things of God." And later he said, "I thought they spoke as if joy did make them speak." Like they couldn't hold it in. Christ had so filled their hearts they couldn't help themselves. They're just filled with the gospel and with Christ, and they're just talking, gossiping Jesus. They never knew that Bunyan was overhearing, unconverted but listening. Later he gave his life to Christ and wrote Pilgrim's Progress, and so, from just a little affect, a little permeation, it spreads to the whole world.

I love the story that my Mission's Professor Christy Wilson, told of what's happened in China. The same thing. I love this story because it shows the power of the gospel, how the Gospel was opposed by Mao Zedong. It was attacked and Christians were murdered and slaughtered down to a certain level and finally he stopped and said, "I can't continue, I've got to denounce the idea of Christianity, not just kill Christians. I've got to take these few Christians that are left who are gaining strength and get them out of being together. I think what I'll do is I'll scatter them all over China so that they're alone, and lonely, and they'll die disgraced." Christy Wilson said that the communist party in China is the greatest mission sending agency of the 20th century. Mao Zedong said, "What I'll do is I'll humble them further, I'll give them jobs like garbage collector, where they go from house to house every day, collecting garbage." You're in a new town, never been anywhere. You've got Christ inside you and you're going from house to house. What do you think you're going to do? Could it be that you're going to share the Gospel, and could it be that there are over 100 million Christians in China today? And could it be that Mao Zedong is dead? 

Kingdom of heaven is like yeast. Hidden in a little corner, it permeates the whole thing. You can't stop it. But it's hidden. It never made the headlines in The New York Times. But it is the story of China, just like it is the story of the entire world which the gospel is conquering and advancing, and the gospel is winning. The kingdom is immense but it's unfinished. We live in a great time, brothers and sisters, a time in which the gospel is accelerating, a time in with a local church like ours can send out our own people across to the ends of the world, and they can influence, they can share the Gospel with some student who's studying English. That study of English becomes a bridge that the Gospel could get across into their minds, and they could believe and be saved. This is a great time, and we can look back over 2000 years and say, "Lord, you've done it, it's not finished yet, but I see it, I can connect the dots. We're 95% there but I see what you're doing. The Kingdom of Heaven is like a small mustard seed, which has grown to imposing size, yes, Lord, the Kingdom of Heaven is like yeast, which is tucked in a little corner, Jerusalem, upper room, and then spreads through the whole world. And yes, Lord, the kingdom of Heaven has conquered my heart and it's taking over everything inside me. Oh, let your work be finished in the world and in me, let your kingdom come.” We never despise the days of small beginnings.

I think about, for example, the haystack prayer meeting. It was a sultry Saturday afternoon, in August 1806. Samuel J. Mills and four other students at Williams College in Massachusetts were talking and discussing the things of God, when suddenly the skies broke overhead, thunder and lightning and they ran and found protection kind of in the back side of a haystack. They just started to pray about world evangelization, they prayed that they would be used in a mighty way by God to spread the influence of Christ to the unreached people, what they called the heathens.  This was just a short time after William Carey, but there were no mission-sending agencies in America at the time. It wasn't long after that, two years later, that they met a student from Brown named Adoniram Judson. He got involved, caught their vision, and he and his wife and a number of others set sail for Calcutta to join up with William Carey. En route, of course, they became Baptist. En route, they realized that they needed some financial support because the Congregationalists were not going to support them anymore, and so they sent Luther Rice back. Luther Rice went from Baptist church, to Baptist church, saying, "You guys have missionaries in the field, and you're obligated to support them financially." That was the beginning of the Southern Baptist Convention. That's how it started, from a prayer meeting in a haystack. Do not ever despise the day of small beginnings. God loves to do this kind of thing, again, and again, and again. To advance the kingdom with just a little mustard seed of faith, to see what God can do.

 What kind of applications can we take?  First of all, can I say to you come to Christ, if you're not a Christian? The things I'm saying to you make no sense whatsoever, if you don't trust Christ. If you don't know Him as your Lord and Savior, if you don't see Jesus bloody and dead on the cross as your substitute for sin, Jesus your sin bearer, and put your trust in your faith in him because he didn't stay dead. God raised Him from the dead on the third day. Is he your life? Is he your righteousness? Is he your hope? If not come to Christ today.  But for you who are Christians, first of all, could you worship Christ for His sovereignty and fulfilling his prophecy? These were prophecies, weren't they? The kingdom of heaven is going to take over and it has. Worship Him. He got it right. It's not finished yet, but you see what He's doing, worship him for what he's doing. Secondly, never be discouraged over the seemingly slow progress of the kingdom. Never be discouraged about what He's doing here, in this church. As long as we are faithful to teach and live obey His word, He will bless this church. Even if the progress seems slow.

 Thirdly, expect great things from small beginnings. God does this again and again. Fourth, put priority on internal spiritual transformation, that comes first. The outward shows and the markers along the way come from a genuine internal transformation. Put the yeast ahead of the mustard seed. The internal transformation happens first, and out of that, comes the fruit that we've been talking about. Influence your surrounding world. Be yeast in your world, let there be lots of Christ about you. Lots of tracts handed to people if you only have a minute, invitations to church, going this afternoon to witness. Take a chance, I don't think you're going to get killed, but even if you do, you'll rejoice and be glad and have the resurrection of a martyr.

Rejoice, be an influencer for Christ, pray for an unreached people group. Adopt one and pray for it for the rest of the year for six months. I prayed for Nepal for eight years, and I have personal stock in the company that God set up there, of over 100,000 Nepali Christians. There were almost none when I began praying. So, pray for them. Start a lunch time Bible study and rejoice if one person shows up. I saw a Bible study like that, start from one person and grew to 23 people.  That's how it all started. Start a lunchtime Bible study, be an influencer for Christ. The kingdom of heaven in the end will conquer all things. Be faithful and serve Him.

Andy Davis preaches an expository sermon on Matthew 13:24-30; 36-43. The main subject of the sermon is how the righteous are currently suffering, but the wicked will eternally suffer later.

We'll be looking this morning in Matthew 13 at what's commonly known as the parable of the wheat and the tares, or what I could call the parable of the wheat and the weeds.  Try boarding a plane these days.  All your belongings checked, your shoes removed in the lines, and sometimes you’re patted down and all because a few unbelievers— the tares, the weeds around us — who changed everything for everybody on 9/11 and now cause torment for us in this present world.  How can we can survive in this world when surrounded by wicked people who crash planes into buildings and change everything for everybody from then on?  It's unbelievers in Hollywood, in New York that are thinking constantly of how to assault your mind with immoral images so that they can make a buck. It's unbelievers that necessitate the passing of overly restrictive laws that cut off blessings from people for the public good, such as these terrorism laws. It's unbelievers in foreign lands that arrest and persecute and torture and kill brothers and sisters in Christ. This is going on, perhaps even now while I speak. It's unbelievers that make this alluring enticing sin-filled world that Bunyan called Vanity Fair surround us as we make our journey to the Celestial City. Yet, for all of that, it's not the sin out there that troubles me as much as the sin inside me, and the fact that there's something in me that actually responds and is allured and enticed by these things that causes me far greater grief.

And so as we come to the parable of the wheat and the tares, the wheat and the weeds, we come with questions, "Lord why, why would You do this? Why would You allow the wheat and the weeds to grow up together?" What about the present torments of the righteous as they have to kind of get along in a world where sinners who reject God's laws flout them, mock them, and set the pace for everyone. This is an ancient question, it's an ancient problem, it's a problem that Abraham's nephew Lot struggled with as he lived in wicked Sodom, surrounded every day by immorality and filth. It speaks of the struggle that he had in 2 Peter 2:8. It speaks of Lot, and it says, "For that righteous man, living among them, day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds that he saw and heard."

We have the picture in Lot of the children of God in this present age, tormented by the wickedness around us and tormented because of the evil itself, that we have to see it. And as I mentioned before, tormented even greater, that there is evil inside us. Romans 7, "What a wretched man I am, who will rescue me from this body of death that we might be freed?" Yes, it's an ancient problem. Enoch, seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men, "See the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of His holy ones to judge everyone and to convict all the ungodly of all the ungodly acts they have done in the ungodly way and of all the harsh words ungodly sinners have spoken against Him." Seventh from Adam, Enoch feeling this, the struggle the righteous have with the ungodly. And all of it comes from the fact that Adam's descendants are a mixed race.

 Now, understand what I mean, I'm not talking about every tribe, and language, and people, and nation. I'm talking about two basic divisions. There's the children of God and the children of the devil. Right from the start it would be this way. In Genesis 3:15, it says, God speaking to Satan, "I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and hers, and he will crush your head and you will strike his heel." So there's the seed of the serpent, and there's the seed of the woman who is Christ, and ultimately the children of God.  There's a long line of struggle between the seed of the woman, the godly, the children of God and the children of the devil.  Proverbs 29:27 says, "The righteous detest the dishonest and the wicked detest the upright." So there it is, two sides of the same coin. We just don't like each other, we don't get along, we see things radically differently, and it's very troubling to us. 

 1 John 3:12 says, "Do not be like Cain who belonged to the evil one." He was a child of the devil, that's what it says. He murdered his brother. Why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother's were righteous.  And yet for all of this mixed situation, wheat and tares all mixed in together, we, God's people, are called to be perfectly pure and holy. We're called to stand firm and to be holy, to be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect. We're commanded not only to be holy, but we're commanded to thrive in this world, to grow rich in good works, to share the gospel with that mission field that appears very much like tares and nothing could ever change it. Yet the gospel has the power for the salvation of everyone who believes, and out of that field comes new people for Christ, the call to evangelize, because, the wheat looks an awful lot like weed, doesn't it? And the weeds look a awful lot like wheat and it's hard to tell the difference, so we're called to reach out with the gospel.

What is the context of this parable? Jesus is in Matthew 13, explaining Kingdom life; He's explaining what the kingdom of God is like. We've already seen one parable, the parable of the seed and the soils. This is a different parable, the parable of the wheat and the tares, and the basic concept here is that the kingdom of heaven grows and flourishes in a context of torment and suffering.  Believers and unbelievers surrounded in a mixed condition in this world that is going to go on to the end of the world. And it must go on to the end of the world. It is part of God's wise plan. At the end, however, He will separate the righteous from the wicked, and the wicked will suffer forever in torment, weeping and gnashing their teeth. This is what Jesus says, "But the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” There will be, in the end, a perfect and final separation, but now in this world, the Kingdom of Heaven advances in a bitterly mixed situation. 

The parable is stated in verse 24-30. Look at it again. "The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared. The owner's servants came to him and said, "Sir, didn't you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?" "An enemy did this," he replied. The servants asked him, "Do you want us to go and pull them up?" "No," he answered, "Because while you're pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time, I will tell the harvesters, first collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned, and then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn."  Jesus’ disciples didn’t understand, so they come and say, "Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field." And to them the secrets of the kingdom are unlocked and clearly revealed by Jesus.

Now I would say to you that this parable is not intuitively obvious. Without Jesus' explanation, we would be very strongly tempted to go astray, to go wrong. We would misunderstand. Especially on the heels of the seed and the soils parable. In the parable of the seed and the soils, the seed is the Word of God, the fields are people's hearts, and the outcome has to do with what each individual person does with the message of the kingdom. But in this parable, it's very different. The seeds are people, either good seed, sons of the kingdom, or bad seed, sons of the devil, and the field is not individual people's hearts, but it's the whole wide world. If Jesus hadn't told us that, we would actually probably go astray, we would not understand this properly. Martin Luther puts it this way, "Who could have discovered such an interpretation, seeing that in this parable He calls people the seed and the world is the field, even though in the parable preceding this one He defines the seed to be the Word of God and the field the people or the hearts of the people? If Christ Himself had not here interpreted this parable, everyone would have imitated His explanation of the previous parable, and the Savior's object and understanding would have been lost." Luther's right, we need Christ to tell us what it means, and He does. He goes line by line and begins to explain the details.

The sower of the seed is the Son of Man. In verse 24 it says, "The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field." You see that, so a man goes out and sows good seed in his field. Verse 37, Jesus says, "The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man," so the man of verse 24 is the Son of Man, it is Jesus Christ Himself. The Son of Man is Christ's preferred title for Himself, comes out of Daniel 7, "A vision of one like a Son of Man, who sits at the right hand of the Mighty One and comes on the clouds of heaven," this is Jesus Christ. He is authoritative, He has power and He has the authority to plant churches, He has the authority to bring people to Christ, to save their souls, and then assemble them in local churches.  

The vision in Revelation chapter 1 is of Jesus Christ, the glorified Son of Man, walking through the seven lamp stands that represent seven actual churches, the number of seven being the number of perfectiofn.  John "saw one like a Son of Man dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet with a golden sash around his chest, his head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire, his feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. In his right hand, he held seven stars and out of His mouth came a sharp double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance." That's the glorified Jesus, the Son of Man, and in His right hand He holds the churches, He holds Christians, they are His. The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man, and at the end of the world, the Son of Man will have authority to judge the world. He'll have the right to go through the whole world and separate them into good fish and bad fish, into wheat and tares, into sheep and goats. He has that right because He is the Son of Man [John Chapter 5]. He has the right to plant Christians and organize churches, and He has the right to judge the whole world because He is the Son of Man.

The next detail is I think a key interpretive principle to this whole parable. The field is  is the world. Why is this important? Because many have gone astray on this point. They say the field is the church and they're wrestling with the question of unregenerate church membership, of mixed situations in a local church, but that's not what Jesus said. The field is the world, the field is not the church. Early church fathers went astray on this. Constantine in his settlement after he came to faith in Christ, if indeed he did come to personal faith in Christ, I hope he did, but if he did, after that, he just settled it, that basically everybody in the Roman domain would be Christians, on point of death. There would be a division in that regard, so it wasn't long after that that the division between the church and the world became blurred, and everything became mixed. There was a concept of Christendom.

Have you heard of that expression before? The kingdom of Christ. It was meant politically. Kings were political leaders and also leaders of the church, and the whole thing got all mixed up. Infant baptism was very much a part of that. We've got this whole mixed condition, and they relied on this text as support.  Even Calvin made a mistake in this point and said that the field is the church. But the mixed nature of the world is here established, not the mixed nature of the church, the fact that the world would be made up of wheat and tares, not the church. However, I will say this, surrounded so closely by unbelievers all the time, it does actually effectively end to unregenerate church membership. Eventually it trickles in and affects the church because it's so hard for the church to resist the pull of the world,  but that's not what the parable is about directly. 

The next detail is who is it that plants the weeds? Where do they come from? Jesus said it's the “evil one”, the devil plants those seeds. You may say, "Who would ever do this? In the middle of the night, planting weeds in somebody's harvest? That's a lot of work and motivated out of hate." But the odd thing is that this was so common, or at least occurred enough that they had to make a law about it in ancient Rome. "Thou shalt not sow weeds in your enemy's field at night”; it's illegal. This was actually known, and you could imagine the havoc that it would cause, by sowing in those weeds in the middle of the field. The devil is constantly doing this. This isn't a one-time thing, but he's constantly sowing in the world, sowing people who do not believe in God, he's the constant enemy of the kingdom,  and the greatest strategy is infiltration of the world in influencing the church. 

The next detail is that the wheat's fruitfulness exposes the true nature of the weeds. It's only when the wheat sprouts and forms heads that the weeds become obvious. Up to that point, they've looked very much alike. It's when the wheat starts to behave like wheat that the difference becomes obvious. That's important, isn't it? It's like when the wheat sprouts and forms heads. What I'm saying is directly when you Christians behave like Christians and grow to full maturity as Christians, then the difference between us and the world will become stark and obvious. But not until. 

The next point is vital. It is the master's intentional strategy to let both grow together until the harvest time. It's not an accident, he's not overtaken by this, he's not shocked or stunned. It is his intentional strategy that it be this way, that they both grow together until the harvest. Look at verse 27 and following. It's a perplexed question by the servants. They come and they're troubled. "The owner's servants came to him and said, 'Sir, didn't you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?' 'An enemy did this,' he replied. The servants asked 'Do you want us to go and pull them up?' And he answered, 'No. Let both grow together until the harvest.’”  It's the intentional strategy of the master, that this should be the case, that the mixed condition will continue to the end.

 I think it's interesting that the servants are never identified in the parable, Jesus never tells us who the servants are. Are they other angels? Possibly. Are they Christians perhaps in prayer begging God to weed it out now? Perhaps. But the answer is no, there's going to be a mixed condition right to the end. The church has tried to weed out the world. After Constantine, the Emperor Theodosius the Great defined Catholic Christian to be somebody who is not an Arian Christian; what we would know as Jehovah's Witnesses, who believe that Jesus is a created being, God's greatest created being. Theodosius said that's heresy. Theodosius said, "We order that adherence of this faith be called Catholic Christians. We therefore brand all the senseless followers of other religions with the infamous name of heretics and forbid their meetings and assembling as churches. Besides the condemnation of divine justice, they must expect the heavy penalties, which our authority guided by heavenly wisdom, shall think proper to inflict." That included burning heretics at the stake.  From Theodosius the Great on, the Roman Catholic Church executed heretics. They killed them, trying to weed the fields. It wasn't until after the Reformation, an Anabaptist like Balthasar Hubmaier came along and said “No”.  In "Heretics and Those Who Burn Them", he said, "Let truth triumph, let God sort it out at the end, preach the gospel." We Baptists believe in that, what we call the separation of church and state. We don't use the arm of the state to weed the world, we let it grow until the end and let God do it, but we do preach the gospel.

But it wasn't just those guys, the Roman Catholics. It was  also James and John, the sons of thunder, you remember they came to a Samaritan village, and the village wouldn't accept Christ, wouldn't allow Christ to go in because He was heading to Jerusalem. James and John said, "Should we call down thunder and lightning from heaven? Wipe them out. They're Samaritans after all. Wipe 'em out. I think it was big of you, Lord, to even try to go visit a Samaritan city, but now that they will not accept You, wipe them out.” Jesus rebuked them, "You don't know what spirit you have, for the Son of Man came to seek and to save, not to destroy." And they went on.

 Therefore, it is God's settled purpose and His intention that the church should thrive and grow in this mixed condition. It is as the church suffers this torment, suffers temptation, suffers persecution, suffers the hard times, that we can be more than conquerors through Him who loved us. It's not going to be smooth sailing. Did you think it would be?  Are you praying, "Lord, take all the evil out." He's not going to do it; instead the church must thrive and grow. What is the master's motive? He tells us in Verse 29-30, saying, "No because while you're pulling up the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest." Reason number one: Wheat and weeds are difficult to tell apart in the early stages.

Saul of Tarsus hated Christians, persecuted them viciously to their death, arrested men, women, and children and threw them in prison. If you had caught him at an early part of his career, would you have thought him wheat or tare? Wheat or weed? Which? Definitely weed. No question about it. George Mueller was a juvenile delinquent. He robbed his father's government salary and used it for his own pleasures. If you had really known what was going on in George Mueller's life, would you have thought him wheat or weed? You would have thought him weed and you would have rooted him up. John Newton was a slave trader, a profligate immoral man. Would you have thought him wheat or weed? You would have thought him weed and you would have rooted him up. If you choose to root someone out, you may root up the next great Saul of Tarsus.  God may want a man to die. He may pour him out even to death so that another man gets saved, just like he did for Stephen, pouring him out to death so that Saul of Tarsus could be saved. He's willing and able and delights to allow this mixed situation to go on for His glory. “Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains by itself a single seed, but if it dies, it bears many seeds.” For this reason, he doesn't want the wheat and he doesn't want the weeds rooted up because you might root up both; you can't tell the difference.

Second of all, it's not best for the wheat because the root systems are all kind of woven together. If you try to just pull up the tares, you're going to uproot more than just the tares. It's impossible to tell the difference and it's not good for the wheat. It's best for us to grow in a situation of conflict, and difficulty and trial.  "Count it pure joy my brothers, whenever you face trials of any kind, because the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you will be mature and complete, not lacking anything." So we must have the weeds around us, making life miserable for us, and stand firm by faith and grow. It's best for the wheat.  He lets them both grow together. 

But it won't go on that way forever. There'll come a separation, there'll come a time. Look at Verse 30, "Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time, at that time, I will tell the harvesters, first, collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned, then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn." The mixed status is not permanent. It's not going to go on forever. But there is a time set for the separation, and it's not now. Verse 39 tells us the time set, the harvest is when? The harvest is the end of the age. And the harvesters are angels, and at the end of the age, the full history of good and evil will be revealed. Do you remember the tree that Adam and Eve ate from in the garden? Remember what it was called? The Knowledge of Good and Evil.  We've had quite a history with evil. We have books and books on the history of evil, we've seen it, and at the end of the age, the history book on evil will be closed. Praise God for that. At last the evil will be finished.

It says very plainly that Judgment Day is coming and the weeds will be pulled up by the root. The Son of Man will sit over that process. He will be Lord of that harvest just as He's Lord of the harvest now, the harvest of evangelism, bringing people into the kingdom. He will be Lord over that harvest too, He will sit in judgment on all the Earth, and the wicked will be rooted out. He will give the command, He will send out His angels, and He will command them, "Weed out the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned." Look at Verse 40-43, "As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out His angels and they will weed out of His kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the fiery furnace where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear."

Do not misunderstand, Christ wants a perfectly pure kingdom, and He will have it. Don't misunderstand this mixed condition and think that God somehow tolerates evil and wickedness. His eyes are too pure to look on evil. He can't tolerate sin at all, but He has a strategy in what He's doing. In the end the kingdom will be pure.  He will send out His angels, and they will weed out of His kingdom everyone who causes sin and all who do evil, all the things that cause sin, all your stumbling blocks. You know what your stumbling blocks are, what you trip over in your walk with God, it's going to be gone. All the temptations gone. All the evil people who hate Christ, gone, all of it removed forever. What a sweet condition, removed forever. Christ will sit as Lord of that harvest, and what some people think of as gentle Jesus, meek and mild, He will sit on a cloud, Revelation 14:14, and He will swing his harvest sickle over the earth, and it will be harvested, for He is Lord of the harvest, and every foul plant will be removed.

Matthew 15:13 says, "Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots." “By the roots” mean gone forever. Gone forever. He will weed His kingdom, and then He will gather the wheat into His barn. Matthew 24:31, it says, "He will send His angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather His elect from four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other." What a moment that will be, a ride with an angel as the angel comes and gathers you up. You are gathered together with all the true believers of all time into one place, brought into His barn so to speak, brought into the kingdom. He will send out his angels. In Matthew 3:12, John the Baptist said the same thing, "Christ's winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will clear His threshing floor, gathering the wheat into His barn but burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire." 

Now is the present time of torment for the righteous. It's hard for us now because of this. He knows it, He knows that it's hard. This is the present torment of the righteous, but then will be the future torment of the wicked and this is clearly taught in this passage. It maybe not be comfortable to talk about but Jesus did not shrink from discussing this. Look at Verse 42, "The angels, they, will throw them into the fiery furnace where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." This is unquenchable fire, an eternity of torment. Non-Christians, some of them, assume that hell will be a fun place where they can hang out with their non-Christian friends and have a party away from the restrictions of God. I don't think it's possible to do those fun things while you're screaming in agony, while you're wailing and gnashing teeth, it's not possible. Why did Jesus talk about this? Because it's real, and it's coming. Jesus doesn't waste words. He said that we would be afraid of Him who has power over both body and soul in hell. He has that power, God does. He wants us to fear.  Hell is eternal, it's clearly taught. Revelation 14:11 says, "The smoke of their torment rises forever and ever, there is no rest day or night for those in the lake of fire." None. Jesus said, "Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to sin, such stumbling blocks must come.” That's our torment that we have all these temptations around us. "Such stumbling blocks must come, but woe to the man through whom they come. I tell you this, it would be better for that man to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be dropped into the depths of the sea then cause one of my little ones to stumble into sin." What do you mean better? Well, I would rather be dropped in the depths of a cool ocean than be thrown in the lake of fire. Jesus doesn't waste words. He said it'd be better for you to have that but you will not get that, but rather the lake of fire.  

Eternal torment of the wicked is taught here, but so also is the future glory of the righteous. This is one of my favorite verses in all the Bible. "Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father." This verse convinces me that we will someday be glorious, shining brightly. It's the best verse of all. There's translation issues in some of the other verses, not on this one. When it says, "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us," some people translate it to us, so that we'll see God's glory out there. This verse makes it plain, we will be glorious. We will shine like the sun, we will be radiant. And as I've mentioned before, CS Lewis put it this way. He said, "If you could see a brother or sister in Christ today, in their glorified state, you would be as tempted to worship them as John was to worship the angel who brought him the Book of Revelation." You'd be on your face. Of course, the sister or brother would say, "Get up! I'm a fellow servant with you, don't worship me."   But there's glory waiting for you if you're a child of God, and it's eternal glory too. Just as that was eternal torment, this is eternal glory. No possibility of a future fall from hell. All the temptations are gone. You're internally transformed. And the things you used to hate, you love forever and ever, and the things you used to love, you hate forever and ever. There'll be no change. You'll shine like the sun in the kingdom of our Father. This also speaks of the resurrection body, “The physical body is sown [1 Corinthians 15] in dishonor, it is raised in glory.” We will shine like the sun.  CS Lewis did say, "I'm troubled by the thought of being a kind of an eternal light bulb,” but that's typical Lewis, I'm not troubled by it.

What happened to Moses when he saw God, just a glimpse of God, what happened to his face? He was shining radiantly. People were scared, so he put a veil over it. And that was just a brief moment seeing, in the Hebrew, the hindquarters of God. We will see Him face-to-face and we will be transformed by that vision. We will shine like the sun forever and ever, a pure and glorious kingdom. The field is the world, and it's mixed. Then, the world will be the kingdom.  Look at Verse 41, "The Son of Man will send out His angels and they will weed out of His kingdom everything that causes sin and all those who do evil." So at that point, the field becomes the Kingdom. It's His kingdom, "It's mine now." He comes and claims it and He does a thorough weeding job. It's going to be pure kingdom at that point. You know the Hallelujah chorus, "The kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ and He will reign forever and ever."   That's Revelation 11:15. They'll become one in the same, the field, the world will become the kingdom,and the thing you've been praying for over and over will at last come true. “His kingdom will have come and His will will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”[Lord’s Prayer] The righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. 

What application can we make for this? First, pray for protection in this sin-cursed world from unbelievers. Pray that God would deliver  our persecuted  brothers and sisters from  evil persecution.  Pray, for protection in this world, protection from persecution, but also protection from pollution, from sin. “Religion that our God and Father accepts as pure and faultless is this," said James, "to look after orphans and widows in their distress, yes, but to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." Be pure. 2 Corinthians 6:14 says, "Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers," don't, don't... Yes, we have to live with them, but don't yolk yourself together. Don't marry an unbeliever, don't go into business arrangements with unbelievers. And may I say directly, don't do church with unbelievers in a committed covenant sense. Unbelievers should not be covenant members of local churches, that is the Baptist ideal. Unregenerate church membership devastates local churches, and so the church must be pure, and the way we Baptists do that is by baptizing only believers at the front and then doing church discipline along the way when unbelievers start acting like unbelievers. So we don't... We're not unequally yoked, we don't do unregenerate church membership. Pray for protection.

Also, can I urge you to trust in God's sovereign grace? It could be a little scary. You say, I've got years to go, probably, decades in this sin-cursed world. How am I going to make it? God knows how to get you through. He's got his hand on you ,and He's going to bring you through this world. You will safely make it through to the other side. "Now to Him who is able to present you before His throne, blameless with great joy, be glory forever and ever." He can do it, He can get you through. He's been doing it with Christians for centuries, He can get you through. Trust Him to get you through this Vanity Fair [ Pilgrim’s Progress]. Stay active in evangelism, be here next week, make time to come and witness with us, reach out with the gospel.

Can I speak to you if you've come here and you're not sure whether you're a Christian or not? Can I speak from my heart? Don't leave this building today without being sure that you're a Christian, without knowing for certain that you have eternal life. The issues are too great. Heaven, where you can shine like the sun forever and ever. Hell, where you would be tormented forever and ever. It's literally that stark a choice. Don't leave this building without being sure that you're born again.