Matthew 13:44-46
In this age of electronic devices, the games that have been a part of children’s culture in the past are dying. Such games as Red Rover, blindfold, jump rope, hopscotch and hide and seek are disappearing. The GPS systems have replaced maps. I can remember when gas companies gave out maps with the company name on the map, such as Gulf, Texaco and Esso. I am so old that I remember when our churches believed that the Bible was the Word of God that contains God’s plan for our salvation from our sins.
The ways of the world have so invaded the church that the kingdom of heaven is hidden even from many who are members in the church today. In the game of hide and seek the goal was to hide so well that the seeker could not find you and as the seeker looked for you, you came out of hiding and ran back to home base without the seeker catching you. We so often spend a lifetime looking for our treasure in this world. We are looking in all the wrong places, for the world will never offer us a treasure of peace, love, hope, and joy. These things are found in God’s kingdom that we find in faith in Jesus Christ. The ways of the world have hidden from us the forgiveness and amazing grace of the living God that we meet in His Holy word. So many never open the Book of life to read it. We see the suffering and misery in the lives of people that are seeking and searching the world for the treasure that will bring them happiness. In this way of life, people think, if we can have money, power, or fame, we will be happy. No matter how much stuff we have the heart that is empty of God’s love and amazing grace and forgiveness will never find the real treasure of life.
In the parables of the hidden treasure and pearl you must surrender all the ways of world and come to God seeking the real treasure of life. That means we must give up the ways of the world filled with greed and hate so that we can gain a place in God’s kingdom of heaven. The truth is that the evil and sin in this world blinds us to the only real treasure and that is the Kingdom of God. This starts in a leap of faith that says, ‘I trust you, Jesus, with my life now and my life unto death on earth. I believe the cross of Jesus is the only plan and the only way to heaven.’
We must surrender our life on earth to receive the grace and forgiveness that offers us the only real treasure that last forever. The treasures of the world will become empty for they are phony and only when you are wiling to surrender your life to the God of the cross and resurrection, can you have the real treasure – a place in the kingdom of heaven.
Jesus told another parable about the way to have the real treasure of the kingdom of heaven in our daily walk of life on earth. Jesus said, “Don’t store up treasures here on earth where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy and thieves do not break in and steal. Wherever our treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.”
We try to secure our treasures in bank vaults, a hidden place, in a box or jar that we might hide it in the ground. The great pharaohs built the great pyramids so that they could take the stuff and treasures they had to the other side of the river; in other words, the world beyond death. Thieves and crooks will always be able to find a way to rob you of the treasures we have on this earth. Even if thieves and crooks don’t get your treasures on this earth, death will come to us and someone else will own your treasures.
No map or GPS system will help you discover the only real treasure of life. By faith and amazing grace that God offers in his living Holy Word can we discover the real treasure. We discover treasures in the God that gives the gift of life. The treasure is found when we surrender our evil ways and sin to the power of God’s love, grace and forgiveness. Then and only then will you have the true treasure – a life in the kingdom of heaven. We can’t just give God part of our lives, but we must give God all of our life.
In the hymn ‘I Surrender All’ written in 1896 by J. W. Deventer tells us what happens when we step out in faith. “All to Jesus I surrender; all to him I freely give. I will love and trust him, in his presence daily live. I surrender all. I surrender all. All to thee, my blessed Savior, I surrender all.”
The map of faith that is found in God’s Holy Word will guide us to the treasure found only in the kingdom of heaven. Where is your treasure located today?
