Cuz we're in the last message of this series that I have enjoyed so much called growing season. And it's a little bittersweet for me to end a message series cuz I want you to think about this for a second. You guys, if you've been here for all four weeks, and if you haven't, that's fine. Not judging you, okay. But if you've been here for all four weeks, that is, let's see, 30 60.

Do math for me. 120ish minutes, right. Am I math right.

Four messages worth by the end of this one, right. >> What you guys get to hear for that snippet of time and that ending is hours and hours of me praying and studying and wrestling and preparing and rehearsing and trying to get the right words to articulate the the passage that's in front of you. And by the way, that's not to pat me on the back. I don't think I'm that great.

But here's what I want to I want to point out to you is we're really good at seeing the end product of things without seeing all of the process that it took to get there. >> You know what I'm saying. And so, , it's graduation party season.

How many of you have been to a grad party. We're good at seeing the grad, right. Congratulations.

You've met the end. But we don't see every grueling moment, every process, every fight with mom and dad that it took to get there, right. There's some kind of process. We see the championship, but we don't see the practices or the strength and conditioning.

We see the wedding day, but not the relationship. We see the harvest. We get all these amazing foods in the grocery store, but we don't see all of the sacrifice that it took to get there.

Even funerals, celebrations of life are like this, too. We celebrate a person's accomplishments, their character, their legacy. But we'd be there all day if we talked about every single conversation, every decision, every ordinary moment, right. We're good at seeing the end result without seeing the process. And today, we get to end this series and look at the end result.

But for this entire series, if you've missed some of it, or maybe you just need a recap because you can't remember the last 90 minutes of this message series over the course of 3 weeks, I'm going to tell you, we've talked about the process of spiritual growth in Matthew 13. Now, in Matthew 13, I love it because it is a a collection of these things called parables. And parables are basically just an illustration. They are a literal truth that are that's illustrated by a a real thing.

And so Jesus tells these parables and he takes the time to explain them. Do you love when Jesus explains something because it makes it easy for us to understand. So he's told a several parables throughout this series.

The first one was the parable of the sewer and it was talking about this seed. This idea that Jesus has something for each and every one of you in this room right now. Do you believe that.

>> That Jesus has something for you and the way that you receive that thing that Jesus has for you. There is four different outcomes. So, we looked at how we have ears to hear on the first week. The second week, we looked at the difference between the wheat and the wheats. And we looked at how we as Jesus followers are focused on growing up as wheat among the weeds, but we are looking towards and walking towards a relationship with Jesus instead of walking away from a relationship with Jesus.

And then last week we talked about the parable of the mustard seed, which this one was the idea that Jesus takes this small beginning and as we plant it in faith that that small beginning can have a big longlasting impact in your life. And so today we get to end this series by talking about the four different parables that are in the kingdom. I'm calling it see it because all of these messages that you look at here are all leading to this one.

All of this is the process that's leading us to the end result. All of this process, all of this growth that we're looking towards is leading towards a destination. Yes, I pun intended.

Because you ready for this. Heaven is the destination and Jesus is the way. >> Somebody should put that on a brochure, which we have. , no, that is not where I got the name from. But I really like that phrase.

But here's the this is the truth. The truth is when we see how valuable the kingdom of heaven is, when we see how valuable the end is, it makes the process and everything that happens within the process completely and totally worth it, right. And so today though, we have to live in this tension that's we're not there yet.

And so for some of us, we're like, that's great. We can talk about the kingdom and we can talk about heaven as being this great thing, but what's it going to be like. What is heaven actually going to look like.

And Jesus in these four parables is going to tell us in each of the parables, he uses this phrase that the kingdom of heaven is like. And so, , grab your Bibles, flip them open to Matthew chapter 13. It's on page.

, I want you to keep these open today because we're going to just go through this passage together little bit by little bit. By the way, if you don't have a Bible, please take this one home. It is our gift to you and I pray that God just uses this book to just to speak to you.

Also, shameless plug, we got sermon notebooks, too, at our welcome table. So, if you've never gotten one of those before, not because I want you to take notes cuz I think what I have to say is so great, but as I said, Jesus is speaking to you. How are you receiving it earlier, right.

And so, , before we get to this scripture, I need you guys to lock in on two really important things. Okay, we locked in. This is the part you're not zoning out on.

Okay, ready. The first thing is that these parables aren't going to tell us what the destination is like practically. They're not telling us, oh, when you get to heaven, it's going to be your loved ones that are like high-fiving you.

We're not talking about that. What we are talking about today is what the destination, the kingdom of heaven is worth. Number two, when we think of and you hear me say these words, the kingdom of heaven, we need to not just think of the end.

We need to not just think of the end because there are pieces of the kingdom of heaven here on earth. Now, that's why when Jesus taught us to pray, you guys know the Lord's Prayer. When Jesus taught us to pray, he said this thing, "Your kingdom come, your will be done where.

" on earth as it is in heaven. And so when we pray in that way, when we pray the Lord's prayer, we are inviting that kingdom to come little bit by little bit into our lives in the world around us as we are rising towards that kingdom. And so the kingdom is happening now and later.

Okay, I I just want to make this super simple. So, let me give my own parable before we get into this. It's like Disney World. Now, I got your attention.

, Disney World. We can get little pieces of merchandise from from Disney at like Walmart or Amazon or something. We can look at the tickets and know what they're worth or what they think that they're worth, right. We can look at a map. We can watch videos.

We can do all of the things, but we don't actually know what it's going to be like until we get to Disney World, right. We can have all of the things and know the value of all of the things to make it worth the trip to that destination. Now, I'm a universal guy myself, so I would go there instead.

But that's not the point. The point is that today what you're getting out of these parables is a look at the value of how important the kingdom of heaven both in your lives now and in your lives to come should be. All right, you guys ready. >> Ready for the word of God.

All right, verse 44. If you follow the numbers down to the number 44, it says this, "The kingdom is like a hidden treasure in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again and then in his joy, in his joy, went and sold all that he had and bought that field.

All right, let's pause there. That's the first of four parables. Okay, so if you want to know when we're getting out of here, there's four of these.

Okay, this is number one of four. Okay, number one of four. There is a man who finds this hidden treasure in a field.

Now, back in Bible times, quiz question. Did they have banks. >> No, not yet. Not fully as we understand a bank. And so what they would do is they would hide their treasure on their land.

Okay, I'm getting into pirate territory really fast here. I can feel it. But they would they would put this treasure on the land.

And if somebody was working on the land and they stumbled upon that treasure that nobody knew about but them, instead of stealing it like a pirate, what they would do is they would go and sell all of their possessions so they had enough money to buy that piece of property, that piece of land, so that they could get the treasure that is on that land. And that is what this man is doing in the parable. He's finding this treasure and he The cool thing about this is the way that it presents it to us is almost like this man was not really planning on finding this treasure, right.

It was hidden. He wasn't a treasure hunter. It doesn't say that it was hidden and he just happened to be in his day-to-day lives.

For some of you, this is how you came to Christ. For some of you, , you weren't planning to come to Christ, but Christ came to you in such a way that you couldn't ignore. Okay, that's an amen worthy thing, by the way, cuz that's my story.

I get really excited about this cuz for me, coming to Jesus was not something that I had intended. Okay, I showed up at a church. I had only been at one about a half dozen times in my life, and I wasn't looking for Jesus. What I was looking for was a way out of my life. I was very depressed and struggled immensely with my mental health.

And then somebody finally said, "Hey, have you met Jesus. " And that was a treasure that I am so glad that somebody gave me. >> Are you glad that pe that God gives treasure in that way. Because like I I don't think you realize this. If you look around in this area in destination right now, if nobody would have helped me to find that treasure, this would not be happening right now.

And so treasure is really exciting in that way. It is lifechanging. And therefore, we go away in our joy like this man did to give everything because it doesn't even feel like it's a sacrifice for the tradeoff of the kingdom of heaven. And that's where this man is. He goes and he sells everything that he has to buy that field.

Now, I want you to picture this. Can you think of how crazy this man might have been to everybody else. All of a sudden, he starts selling everything he has because he wants to buy some random piece of land. What if I told you that. What if I was like, "Hey guys, , after today, we're going to sell our house.

We're going to sell our cars. We're going to sell all of our stuff. And Chelsea and I are going to buy a piece of land. " You'd worry for my children, right. You'd worry for my well-being a little bit, right.

You'd question it a little bit. I hope you would as my friend, okay. That you would question it just a little bit.

But this man was willing to look a little funny because of what he found in Jesus. And this is what coming to Christ may feel like sometimes for some of you that everybody will question why you're doing what you're doing. Maybe it's not here, but maybe it's at work.

Maybe it's with that old friend group that you had. They'll label you as, "Oh, you're no fun" or you're that weird Christian person. It even happened to me when I came to Christ and I came back to my friend group.

Me coming to Christ was out of left field for them. And so the first time I ever felt the prompting of the Holy Spirit in my life was to speak to me to give up that friend group in my life. And that was really hard.

But the truth is is that they wanted me to stay in that place of depression and hopelessness and turn to other things that were not Jesus. And so in at the time in high school, I found it really hard to make friends, to keep friends, to be in a friend group. So to me, having this friend group was like finding treasure.

It was like finding treasure. And to have to to give that up seemed like to some people that it was a huge sacrifice that made no sense. But to me, finding Jesus and the hope that I had in Jesus made it all make sense. >> And now what I'm not telling you is, you know, go befriend or go befriend all of your non-believing friends.

That's not what I'm saying. What I am saying is that treasure in Jesus is richer than treasure treasure on earth. And so you and all of us have this temptation to put something in front of Jesus that we treasure more than the treasure that he has for us in the kingdom of heaven. And so Jesus compares the kingdom in our lives coming into our lives. And at the end of our lives to a treasure, he also compares it to a fine pearl.

Grab your Bibles. Look at verse 45. He's going to shoot into the second. We're at second out of four. He says this again, "The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls.

When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it. Okay, here's that same idea but presented a little bit differently. Now, why is Jesus presenting this idea a little bit different. Because he's speaking now to a different section of this audience. So, biblically speaking, somebody who was a merchant that was looking for a pearl was unlike the buried treasure, you know, treasure hunter type of pearl.

He was more like a treasure hunter. Actually, he was intentionally looking for a pearl. He was living off of the wisdom and the guidance of people that went before him.

It was an an intentional search for knowledge and for wisdom. And for some of you, you are either here today or you've been at this place where you've wandered into church and some of the bigger questions that you had in your life were more important than hearing about, you know, some things to do with Jesus. And so you come in here with some big questions like, "Oh man, who should I marry.

Like who who is like my my person, right. Or what is the purpose of life. Why am I even here. Why am I even doing this.

Or what should I do. What should I do with my life. What should I All of these huge questions that we ask throughout life.

We come in and we we we want the answer, the fine pearl of that. And we when we find that what we're actually looking for is found in Jesus, then we see that Jesus actually has and holds all of the answers to these big questions. And so we get to look for Jesus and then that becomes so valuable to us that it is worth in our joy going and giving everything up to see what Jesus has for us.

Now there's another side to this too that I want to hit because like a merchant some of you may have grown up around this stuff. Maybe for you, you've grown up in a Christian home or you've had the knowledge or the wisdom around you your whole life and to you, you didn't, you know, stumble upon this treasure, but it's just been this constant thing. But maybe I just want to give you just a little bit of maybe. Maybe some of your faith is on rental.

Maybe some of your faith has been borrowed by the people that you get that knowledge and wisdom from. Now, I'm not saying that rental and borrowing is bad, but what I'm saying is that Jesus's hope for you is that you would own your faith. That you would not work off of borrowed faith, but that faith would become your own.

And that means from friend group to friend group, from place to place, your relationship with Jesus is unchanging and continuing towards the kingdom of heaven. >> And so for some of you, the step to owning your faith is baptism. I'm just going to tell you that one more time because I believe there's a sixth person in here.

>> That for some of you, it is your time to say, "I want to own my faith. And that is what the step of baptism looks like. You see the point of both of these parables, the first two that Jesus gives us, I think Paul summarizes just so beautifully in Philippians 4.

He basically says that everything gained in life is a loss compared to the kingdom. Look how he says it. But whatever were gains to me, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.

What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For whose sake I have lost all things, I consider them garbage that I may gain Christ. >> Paul considers everything else garbage compared to what he has, the treasure, the pearl that he has in Christ.

All right, that is huge. That is a big claim that anything we have here is not even worth the treasure that we have in Christ. Now, here's what I want you to see. Both of these parables, in these first two, people find something of great value, right.

That's the illustration that's happening. And then they give something up in order to fully be into that value, right. Destination.

Can I just get a really borderline convicting this morning just a little bit. I'm gonna tell you this is like the hardest part for me to read of my message because I wrestle with these. I wrestle with these.

And so don't hate the mailman. Just listen to the mail. Do you believe in Jesus.

And do you believe that Jesus is telling the truth here that the kingdom of heaven is like that. You don't have to say yes because you know the no people are might be like oh but you could say yes in your heart or you can say yes out loud whatever you want to do. Do you believe that salvation is the best gift that you've ever received. Do you believe that heaven is going to be awesome and that forever is a long time.

That eternity is a long time right. What are you willing to bet here on earth for that. What are you willing to bet here on earth for that belief that Jesus is telling the truth about the kingdom and how valuable it is. And so what Jesus says and what Jesus brings us to then then well actually hold on I want to go back for a second because what we can feel like after we ask questions like that is man does that mean I can't have nice stuff does that mean like I literally have to go sell everything I own that's not what I'm telling you okay what I it doesn't mean you can't have nice stuff it doesn't mean you can't have the classic car the vacations all of the things. It just means the treasure that you found in Jesus is the most valuable thing that you have found in this life.

And when people know that they found that treasure and when people have found that pearl, it makes sense some of the end. And so now Jesus is going to shift our focus just a little bit in the next parable. We're at three of four. The kingdom is like a fishing net. Look at verse 47.

Says once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all t kinds of fish. When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in the baskets, but they threw away the bad ones. 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 burning furnace where there will be weeping and nashing of teeth.

So, here's this third illustration that Jesus gives us. He gives us fishing. Okay, that can be relatable to a lot of us here in Minnesota, right. And what he's going to do is he's going to kind of bring it back to that second week that we had the parable of the weeds and the wheat.

And he's gonna say that there's going to be this separation that happens. Now, in Minnesota, if I were to take a really, really large net and I were to troll the bottom or a full lakes's worth, okay, I would pull up fish and what would happen. I would have a ton of different types of fish potentially, right. I could have perch.

I could have sunnies. I could have bass. I could have northerns. I could have the fish of the kingdom of heaven, which is walleye, right.

Because it's delicious. , so you can have all of those types of fish. And what Jesus is saying here is that there is going to be a separation between the good and the bad fish and that they are all swimming in the same place. Okay, I want you to hear that for a second because there are people that are in your circles that are not in mine. Okay, there are people that are in your circles that have not heard about the kingdom of heaven.

There are people in your circles that do not know Jesus. And at the end, you want to make sure they're in the pile of the good fish. And so as we're swimming around in this life, our aim should be to cast our net towards people that do not know Jesus, that don't know the how valuable this kingdom is. Because here's the big idea. All types of people will be in heaven, but not all types of beliefs.

And so you'll see all types of people just like all types of fish. But there is only one way. There is only one truth. There is only one life and his name is Jesus. And Jesus is the only way to heaven and through a relationship with Jesus.

And so we try as Christians to lead people to this life. And if you're not there this morning, man, I just want to tell you a relationship with Jesus will change your life. It will change your life. And it will change your eternity. And it will change the way that you think of the end.

Now, I do want to point this out at the end of this passage. He's talking about now the end of the age. Now, this is where a lot of Christian ears perk up because we look at the world around us and we think the end is near, right.

We we look at that and we've been we've been saying that for for generations and there's a lot of theories and theologies and someday we will get to all of those theories and theologies behind the end times. But for the sake of the Disney World kind of brochure here, I want you to hear me because this is the universal truth about the end of the age here is that Christ is returning. The question isn't if he's returning, it is when he's returning.

It isn't whether or not he's going to re return. It's whether or not you're ready. And so we prepare ourselves for the end of our lives here on earth, our earthly lives, or we prepare ourselves like a like a bride coming for his groom or a groom coming for his bride at the end.

That's what we're prepared for. And so our job as Christians is not only to prepare ourselves, but to help prepare others. And so what Jesus does with this last parable is he shows us first the worthiness, okay.

How awesome heaven is going to be, what it's worth. Then he tells us what the end of the age is going to be like. So we know what kind of treasure we have in Jesus.

And then he's going to give us what we do now. Okay, so look at verse 51. He says, "Have you understood these things.

" Jesus asked. Yes, they replied. He said to them, "Therefore, every teacher of the law who has become a disciple in the kingdom of heaven is like an owner of a house who brings out of his storoom new treasures as well as old. " And this is where he ends these parables. Now, here's what I want you to catch.

Biblically, the owner of the house now has somewhere to put his treasure. He's not burying it in a field. He has ownership over this house and over the treasure in his home. And Jesus is specifically talking to those who have found him, who have found this treasure.

And he says, "Those who have become a disciple in the kingdom of heaven is like an owner of a house. And that they bring out this new treasure as well as the old. Here's my point.

Everything in your life leading up to this point, God can use for his good and for his glory and for your good, God can make all of those things work out together. So that old faith that you had, that faith that you had when you were growing up in church and learning all that Sunday, all the Sunday school songs, that's treasure that you can pass on to the next generation, to the people around you that have never met Jesus before. You have new treasures. You are getting new treasures right now as we speak through the Holy Spirit. You are getting new treasures that you get to give to somebody else through the week.

I can't tell you how many times, small tangent, I can't tell you how many times I've had somebody come up to me either after the message, throughout the week, whatever it is, and said, "You know what. The craziest thing happened. I had a conversation with somebody and it was the same thing we were talking about in church. I don't plan that, okay. " And so plan on that happening that God is going to use you in extreme awesome and amazing ways if you are willing to own your faith.

If you are willing to own the new and the old treasures and pass those off to other people. Because followers of Jesus, we don't just collect truth. We share truth and we seek to help others come into this amazing gift of the kingdom. So this is where I want to end.

I want to end with a story. A a church that I was a part of just a little bit ago. We got this we bought this old church building. And in this church building there was a bunch of different doors and each door had its own individual lock and its own individual key.

When we first got the building, , I had been storing our worship equipment to happen on Sundays in this closet. We were still renting and so like we didn't really know all of the keys and what they did and stuff like that. And this closet for the first time in like a year got locked. And I was locked out of all of my stuff. So, I go grab this box of what I'm hoping is just going to be a couple of keys.

And it's this huge box of keys that I put on the floor, and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, this is going to be a headache. " Kristen's laughing because she was there. , and I'm sitting there and I'm using and testing all of these different keys. And to all of my co-workers, they're like cheering me on, but they're walking by and they're seeing one stack of keys that I haven't tried and one stack of keys that I have. And I was there, and I'm not exaggerating, for hours.

Okay, that's how many keys this church had collected. And then when I found it, you know what I finally did to this key. All right, I went out and I made copies of it and I kept one for myself. And then I labeled that key and then I made copies for other people. This is the point.

The key in your life is Jesus. >> And you have the ability to take that key and give it to other people so they can unlock the treasure that is in Christ. >> And so this is why this is why we continue to grow, why we continue to mature in our faith, why we continue to show up, to get to know Christians, to get to know our Bibles, to get to know because at the end, Jesus has something amazing for you.

You have an amazing treasure. And so we should walk like all of these people in these parables with joy that we have this treasure with joy that we have enough of it that we get to share it with other people. And so for some of you today your action step is to take the key.

Is to take the key. Maybe for some of you you haven't come into a relationship with Jesus. And today I just want to say he's offering you the key. He is offering you himself. That's what he did when he died on a cross for you.

He was offering you the key to abundant and eternal life through him. And if you're there, if you say, "Hey, I believe. I know this treasure. " Then our job is to remember the joy that we have in Jesus's sacrifice.

And so, this is how we're going to end today in this message series. We're going to take communion together. Communion is this beautiful sacrament that we get to celebrate as a church. And so we'll have these tables up at the side.

If you're not in the place where you you know would say that I have the key yet or I I'm not sure if I believe in Jesus yet, don't worry. You don't have to come up and do communion. Just know that we're praying for you and we hope that you would take that key of Jesus today.

But for the rest of us, the band's going to come up. They're going to play instrumentally for a little bit. And here's what I want you to do specifically, okay. As you come up, as you walk up, I want you to think of Jesus's sacrifice for you. As you walk up, I want you to visualize how he walked up to the hill carrying his cross, ready to pay it all for you.

And then when you grab the communion, when you take the bread and you take the juice and you bring it back to your seat, I want you to reflect as you grab that bread, reflect on Jesus and on his words when he said, "This is my body given to you. Do this in remembrance of me. " And then as you take the cup and you drink the cup, you take that and you remember Jesus's words that Jesus shed his blood for you and that we are doing this as a sign of the new covenant and remembering the remembrance of what Jesus and his love has done for each and every one of us.

This is that visual representation that is bringing us into the joy of our salvation, the joy of our savior. So, this is something that when we come up, I want you to just be in full reflection of the treasure you have in Jesus. And again, if you're not there yet and you still have some questions, you need some prayer, myself, Wes, a few others.

We'll be back at that table. We'd love to pray for you and with you. But let's just pray together.

God, we thank you so much that you are here, that you are present. God, I pray for anybody in this room who's been walking without the key. I pray that today it would be different.

That today they would take the keys to the kingdom. That they would take the keys to you and to your truth this morning. And for the rest of us, I pray that we would remember the treasure that we have in you. The treasure that we have in your name, the treasure that we have in heaven as we take communion together. It's in Jesus name we pray.