Is Jesus Your Ticket or Your Treasure?
Receiving Jesus or Using Jesus?
Matthew 13:44
Preached at Main Street Church on October 14th, 2018
“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys the field.”
- I last spoke about what the gospel is, today I want to speak about how to receive it
- FCF: Our culture has made the gospel of Jesus like receiving a ticket instead of receiving a treasure.
- Based on American consumerism, utilitarianism, individualism, personal liberty, autonomy, and a false view of freedom
- Sees Jesus as a simply a way to heaven instead of a way to God
- Sees Jesus as simply a means to eternal blessing in paradise instead of a means to eternal bliss in God himself
- Sees Jesus as a ticket instead of as a treasure
- That’s not receiving Jesus, that’s using Jesus.
- What is the kingdom of heaven? – It is not a place or a people. It is the rule, reign, and authority of Jesus, the King.
- Matthew 12:28 “If it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.”
- Matthew 4:23 “(Jesus was)…proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people.”
- Where do we first see the kingdom of God? – In the Garden of Eden
- God’s authority, rule and reign, were perfectly established; all creation reflected the perfection of God.
- How is the kingdom of heaven like treasure? – If the kingdom of heaven is the rule, reign, and authority of Jesus, the King, then its worth is based on him. The value of the kingdom is based on the power of the king.
- What makes the kingdom valuable is the king.
- Why is it hidden? – We do not see it’s worth
- 2 Cor. 4:4 “The god of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”
- Matt. 13:13 “Seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.”
- Rom. 1:20-22, 25 “For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things…they exchange the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.”
- What does it mean to find it? – He sees it.
- When we truly see God, we see his worth
- 2 Cor. 4:6 For God… “has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”
- John 14:6-7 “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known him and have seen him.”
- Colossians 1:15 “He is the image of the invisible God.”
- Hebrews 1:3 “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature”
- The gospel reveals it to us. John 3, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.
- What does it mean to be in the kingdom of God? – To rejoice in the value of God, and use everything in your life to display it’s worth.
Is Jesus your ticket or your treasure?