“And It’s Just Around the Corner!”

Scripture: Matthew 13:31-33, 44-46

Recently, a TV commercial has grabbed my attention. Quite honestly, I don’t remember what product was being promoted, but one phrase in the ad has stuck in my mind. After touting the benefits and blessings that come with ownership of this product, the announcer enthusiastically tells the young buyer – “You deserve it!” It seems that you should purchase this item as a reward for simply being “you”.

Society wants us to think that we deserve the very best that the world has to offer. We deserve the finest car, we deserve the largest wide screen TV, we deserve a highly paid job, and everyone should be the owner of a grand house, whether we can afford them or not. We deserve to have as much as any other person – as much as Donald Trump, or Warren Buffet, or Bill Gates. Did you hear that Gates is still the wealthiest man in American, at a net worth of over $50 billion? Even while most people experienced a major reduction in assets over the past 2 years, Bill Gate’s financial worth increased!

And that delusion of “personal deservedness” has found its way into the very fabric of the church. We deserve a good life, so why doesn’t God give it to us? We deserve prosperity. After all, Jeremiah 29 tells us that the divine plan is intended to prosper us. So where is it? We deserve salvation and since God wants us to be saved, why worry about all those demanding and overly restrictive laws? Just save me for the next life, and let me worry about this one!

But the truth is that what we really deserve isn’t blessings, but rather condemnation, and it is only through faith in Jesus Christ that we can receive the precious gift of eternal life with our Lord. So, even though we don’t deserve heaven, we still have the hope of life in that incredible place, and that this day it is coming very soon. But what is heaven all about? Why should we want to be there?

Jesus told 7 parables about heaven (Mustard seed, Yeast, Hidden treasure, a Pearl of great price, a Net, Growing seeds, and the wedding feast) and each one begins with the words “The Kingdom of heaven is like …”. Today we look at 4 of them.

Read Matthew 13:31-32

The first teaches that the kingdom is like a mustard seed that is planted in a field. It is recognizably the smallest seed that the people in Jesus’ day would ever see, but it grows to be the largest plant in the garden. Jesus refers to the mustard plant as a tree, even though the largest only grow to be 8 feet or so in height. This concept of “tree” is both a reference to the “empire tree” that is a relatively common symbol of earthly kingdoms, as well as a number of future images of God’s Kingdom contained in the Hebrew Testament (Psalm 104:12, Daniel 4:10-12, Ezekiel 17:22-24 ). The comparison of the Kingdom to a tree instead of a plant is also significant, in that the world sees it as small and relatively worthless, while the Church sees it as a mighty cedar or redwood.
And people from all over the earth will find comfort in its branches, in the glory of the kingdom, and will find safety in its foliage – and Satan, the “harbinger of death”, will find no comfort and no security there!
Jesus also makes reference to the power of faith that is only the size of a mustard seed in Matthew 17:20. A small amount of faith can do great works through Christ.

The next “heavenly” parable is about yeast.

Read Matthew 13:33

This parable, too, left the people scratching their heads. Yeast was almost always used as a symbol of evil, of sin, of corruption, especially in the context of government in that day. But Jesus, once again, turns our understanding on its ear!

Consider, for a moment, some of the characteristics of yeast and how it may compare to Heaven.
1. Yeast is stored in a dark, cool place until the time comes for it to be used, and if it is left to itself, it will never be anything but yeast. But combine it with warm water and flour, and it becomes a whole new creation. And incidently, the word that NIV translates as “mixed” more accurately means “hidden”. As with yeast, the kingdom, at least for now, is hidden away, it is silent, it is not yet time for it to begin working, and that time will be in God's time.
2. The volume of yeast that is used in baking is very small when compared to the amount of flour used. In the parable, the volume of flour is nearly 10 gallons – an exorbitant amount. Consider the number of loaves of bread that could be made with the addition of just a little yeast, and consider how a little bit of heaven in each of us can grow our faith to gargantuan proportions.

“The kingdom of heaven is like yeast”. It is hidden for now, not seen and certainly not obvious to the majority of people in this world, but when the time comes for it to be revealed, it will bring extravagant blessings to all who will join Christ at His banquet feast.

For these 2 parables, the concept of God’s Kingdom is presented in a drastically different way than the people had envisioned it up to this time. Heaven, it seems, is not an unlimited and infinite place right now. It is small, it is hidden, and it’s nearly insignificant. But when the time comes, it will grow to accommodate all who will draw near in faith. It will be beyond generous, it will welcome the faithful from all walks of life, from all nations, from all kinds of persecution, of all ages and from all times.
The New Interpreters’ Bible explains it this way. “A modern analogy to these parables would be ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a preacher who preached every Sunday to a congregation of 25 people [living] in a city of 2,000,000 residents. The preacher kept on preaching until the whole city believed the gospel.’” Now there’s a challenge if I ever heard one! And I'll need your help to do it!

The kingdom has yet to come, but come, it surely will.

The next 2 parables for today take a different slant on heaven than the first two did. They are similar in nature to each other, but can be seen in different ways.

Read Matthew 13:44

First, a thought. Many find this first parable a bit perplexing - it seems to be describing the actions of a thief – and they try to explain away the actions of the man who finds the treasure, and then buys the land without letting the owner know about its true worth. But I see this in a different light. Whenever we study Jesus’ teachings – whether it is His sermons or His parables or even His life - we have to be careful about how much of it is placed in an earthly context. And in this regard, I believe that we have to see this parable as God would see it. Think about it this way.
The treasure is heaven – the ultimate prize of salvation, which was won for us in Christ’s first coming, and is being kept in safety until He returns.
The field is the entire earth, and not just some small portion of it.
The owner of the field – Satan - is the one who currently has authority over the earth, and who incidentally, has no personal use for the “treasure” of salvation, and therefore it is of no loss and of no consequence to him!
The “man” who uncovers the hidden treasure is Christ, and He places it in reserve until the time comes for Him to return and reveal it to all the earth, once and for all.
And He gladly gives all that He has to claim His rightful place as ruler of the earth.

Remembering that this truth is about the kingdom of heaven, I don’t believe that the “man” who finds the treasure can represent humanity as many suggest. The man eventually purchases the entire “field” in order that He could take possession of the valuable find, and while we are able to claim the treasure, we could never purchase the entire earth. Only Christ Himself could do that.

Similarly, the last parable for today is also about heaven, but with a couple of possible interpretations.

Read Matthew 13:45-46

The first possibility for this parable is this:
The merchant is, again, Christ, who is seeking treasure for His Kingdom.
The Pearls that He seeks are the righteous – those who have claimed Him as Lord and Savior.
And the Savior sells all that He has to redeem the faithful for Himself.

But there is also the possibility of a second interpretation:
The merchant is you and me, seeking treasure of lasting value within this world.
We find Christ – the greatest of all Treasures that we could ever hope to possess.
And we give all that we have – our lives, our love, our trust, our commitment – in order that we might claim Him as our own.

As with most of Jesus’ parables, He doesn’t give us a clear cut explanation of the truth in His words, and I would never even suggest that my interpretation is definitive. But He does give us a lot to think about. It would seem that heaven has yet to come into its own, but that the “seeds” of heaven have already been planted, and it will grow to fully embrace all who love God. It is hidden for a little while longer, but when it is completely revealed, it will be abundant, extravagant, more than we could ever imagine and far more than we could ever hope for.
Heaven is a treasure that is just waiting for us, and the truth is that God sees each of us as a treasure of immeasurable worth – a treasure that is worth accepting human life for Himself, with the full intention of then giving it all up as a sacrifice on our behalf.

“The Kingdom of Heaven is Like ..” – well, what is it like for you? Is it so far beyond all comprehension that you have given up even trying to imagine what it is like? Or have you decided that it is so simple, that there is really no need to ponder its significance? The truth is that we can’t fully appreciate the vastness and infinite value of the treasure of heaven, but that it is worth our time and our effort to consider its significance for our lives.

“The Kingdom of Heaven is a gift to you.” Accept it in Christ.