Good morning. Well, this past week has been a crazy one. Monday and Tuesday I was in Indianapolis, Friday and Saturday I was at a Senior Retreat. And today, I am going home between services for a birthday party for dad. But lucky for me, in 34 days the confusion and business of school will be over.
But, today, we are going to continue in our series Gone Fishin’. This morning we are going to look at Matthew 13:44-50. In this passage, we will see our fishing scene for today. It depicts what happens when all the fish are in a net together, both the good ones and the bad ones. But, before we begin let’s open with a word of prayer.
Jesus actually tells 3 parables in Matthew 13:44-50. The first 2 are obviously related to each other, and the third is related to the first 2, but it is less obvious. Have you ever really wanted something? I mean really longed for it? Have you desired, needed, craved, or hungered for something so bad that it hurt? When this happens, the only thing that will meet that need is an amazing discovery of what you are looking for. And that is what we find in the first parable.
Let’s go ahead and read the first part. Matthew 13:44-46 says, “1”
Here we have an Amazing discovery
Jesus uses the familiar experiences of His audience to get His point across. Now not many people would have found a treasure, but the people did know a lot about the practice of hiding things of value in the ground. People did not have banks and safes to keep their wealth in, so they would protect their valuables in a secret spot in the ground.
Whereas when we need money, we go to the ATM machine, when they needed money or decided to sell or trade some jewelry or other item, they would go to the place at night, uncover the jar or storage box, take out what they wanted and rebury the rest.
Since Palestine was a constant battleground for foreign armies for hundreds of years, families would often bury things to keep the enemy from finding them. Many of the treasures remained buried and their location was unknown if the owner died suddenly or was forced off his property and deported to a foreign country. The treasure would then be forever lost unless someone accidentally discovered it.
In the story, the man may have accidentally trip over something sticking out of the ground, or maybe a severe storm had come through and the water had washed away some of the dirt that was covering it. The man dug at the site and discovered a great treasure.
The Rabbinic law at the time provided “that if a man finds scattered fruit or money, it belongs to the finder.” If a person came across money or other valuables that were obviously lost and whose owner was dead or unknown, the finder had the right to keep what was found. Finders keepers, losers weepers.
This man wanted the treasure for himself, but he wanted to have it in a completely legal manner. He could have simply taken the treasure and run off with it, and no one but him and God would have known about it.
The man knew that whoever owned a piece of land, would have the right to everything that came with the land. He knew the value of the treasure he had found and was willing to be sold out to obtaining it. He went and sold everything that he had in order to buy the field so that he would have an indisputable claim upon the treasure. Nothing he had could compare to what it was he was receiving. He chose to give it all, in order to purchase the field.
Now, at first this may sound a little odd, but in Jesus’ day, valuables would be hidden in jars in Palestine, much like pirates buried their treasure to keep them safe. The land was so often ravaged that burying valuables was a safe way to protect them from thieves. And with this, peasants would dream of stumbling upon one of these jars filled with a treasure.
The man in this story finds a treasure, then immediately he hides it. The background for this may be that of a peasant working in the field of a landowner. If the treasure is removed, it belongs to the landowner. If it remains in the ground, it also belongs to the landowner, but leaves open the possibility that it could be acquired by a new landowner one day if a new landowner should come along. So this man that finds the treasure intends on being that new landowner.
If this is the background for the parable, the man is not looking for the treasure. In the course of his work, he stumbles upon it. For some of us, in the course of our lives, we stumble upon the Kingdom without even looking for it.
The discovery of the treasure prompts an outlandish response. It has changed his view. His values have probably changed. He now has to have that treasure for himself. In order to get the treasure, he has to buy the field. In order to buy the field, he has to sell all his possessions. His possessions are now seen in light of the treasure he seeks. What he valued before is sold in order to acquire something of more value to him now.
If you are here this morning, you are getting a look at the treasure, so to speak. Perhaps you may be stumbling upon it today for the fist time. Perhaps it is just the first time that you have taken it seriously. So, the question is, “Is this discovery worth selling all your possessions?”
Note what motivates the man in the story to sell his possessions and acquire the treasure. It is “joy.” Literally, the text reads that “from his joy” he sells his possessions in order to acquire the treasure.
This is the joy of getting something. Make no mistake, this is the joy of getting something for ourselves. Only one man is involved in this story, and he acts completely in his own self-interest, and Jesus the teller and Matthew the author would both have us believe that he acted commendably. The man is motivated to sell all his possessions by nothing other than his own joy.
The merchant in the second parable is a different sort of person than the man depicted in the first parable. The first man stumbled upon the treasure without even looking for it; this man is looking for something. He is a merchant looking for fine pearls. He's in the pearl-buying busines.
He represents a seeker - someone who understands that there is something more than himself out there. Also, he wants to do something about it. He wants to search. He asks questions in legitimate search of answers, not as a smoke screen to defend his position. Some people find the kingdom by stumbling upon it; others find the kingdom by searching for it. Perhaps some of you are searching for that missing something this morning. Perhaps some of you who have already found the kingdom are searching still because you're convinced that there's more to the kingdom than what you've seen.
There seems to be a guarantee that those who seek God will find him. The Lord told Israel in Jeremiah 29”12, “And you will seek me and find me, when you search for me with all your heart.” In Matthew 7:7 Jesus said, “Ask, and it shall be given to you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and the door shall be opened to you.”
When His disciples asked Him why He spoke in parables, Jesus said in Matthew 13:11, “To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted.” The parables tended to identify those who assigned enough value to the kingdom to look for it. Those who wanted the kingdom sought to understand the mysteries revealed in the parables; those who didn't want the kingdom couldn't be bothered with investigating such mysteries.
So it is with the kingdom of heaven: It is waiting to be found by those who search for it. The question then becomes: “Are we in the pearl business?” Are we seeking, or are we satisfied with answers that only serve to justify our safe but boring lifestyles?
In the course of his looking for fine pearls, the merchant makes an amazing discovery. He's looking for pearls, which is in the plural form, but he finds only “one” pearl. This pearl is “of great value.” By his subsequent actions, it is shown that he believes the pearl to be more valuable than he ever dreamed a pearl could be.
However valuable we think the kingdom of heaven is, it is probably a lot more valuable than we ever dreamed it could be. But in the course of our seeking and agonizing and wondering what it is we're missing, perhaps we, like the merchant, see something we've never seen before. Perhaps we see the kingdom of heaven as that one pearl of great value.
Upon making his discovery, the merchant does the same thing that the man in the first parable did: He goes, he sells everything he has and he makes a purchase. He sells everything he has in order to buy the pearl. He is not buying the pearl in order to make a profit; he's buying it in order to possess it. Once making his purchase, he evidently gets out of the business. He's not buying and selling anymore.
Once we find the kingdom, and find it to be that pearl of great value, what should we do? We need to chase after it and appreciate it so much that we would change everything in order to possess it. On the one hand, we should be in the pearl business, seeking for the kingdom and seeking to understand its greatness. But on the other hand, we should be in the appreciation business, marveling at the greatness of the king and His love for us when we find Him.
Although these 2 stories come at things from slightly different angles, they both make the same point: The value of the kingdom is worth giving up everything else that a person values. In each story, the character is blown away by his discovery - so much so that he responds in a startling way. The first character is motivated by joy. And though it is not specifically stated that the second character was motivated by joy, his reactions indicate that joy, or something like it.
So, from these 2 parables we see the joy of making a discovery of something that we are searching and longing for. In the next part of the passage we see the fishing analogy. This would also be a crushing agony. Matthew 13:47-50 says, “1”
In the previous 2 parables, people were seeking the kingdom. In this parable, the kingdom seeks the people. As it turns out, the kingdom is seeking people who value it. The third parable shows that when people find the kingdom, it's not an accident. They didn't just get lucky. Behind the scenes, the Lord sets the stage for us to find him. Yes it is still up to us to search, but it is sort of like what Ted talked about this morning. Our destiny is determined by the choices that we make in the chances that we are given.
The dragnet, a large net that is pulled through the sea, is indiscriminate. It gathers fish “of every kind,” both “good” and “bad.” In this story, it does not qualify what distinguishes a good fish from a bad fish. Evidently, one is good for eating and the other is not. Perhaps the bad ones were rotten or considered unclean. The purpose of a dragnet is not to gather bad fish; the purpose is to gather good fish. The bad fish simply get in the way.
This parable clearly parallels the parable of the tares in Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43. The Son of Man sows the good seed, the sons of the kingdom, but the devil is responsible for the tares, the sons of the evil one. But until the harvest, the end of the age, the wheat is indistinguishable from the tares or the weeds.
So in this parable, the good fish are indistinguishable from the bad as they are gathered. Sometimes, people who look like followers of Christ aren't followers of Christ at all.
The “good” fish, then, represent the sons of the kingdom. These are the people who, like the characters in the first 2 stories, value the kingdom. The word “good” in verse 48 is the same word that is translated “fine” in verse 45. It can also be translated “beautiful.” As the merchant seeks something “beautiful,” which turns out to be the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of heaven is seeking things beautiful, which turn out to be the sons of the kingdom. They are beautiful in that they see the kingdom as beautiful, and along with that they see the King as beautiful.
From II Corinthians 3:18 we see that we are, in fact, transformed into the image of Christ as we behold the glory of the Lord. Valuing the King, then, not only marks us off as one who belongs to Him but also transforms us into people who reflect His splendor. Thus, as it says in Matthew 13:43, they will “shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” You see, their true beauty will then be brought forth.
So what then characterizes the “bad” fish? Presumably the same things that characterized the tares. They are “stumbling blocks and those who commit lawlessness.” They hinder others' attempts to find the kingdom and follow the king, and they don't value the laws of the kingdom.
So what is the end of the age? In this we see that Jesus is a prophet. For Jesus, the end of the age would be 70 A.D., when God's wrath would be executed against the evil of Jerusalem, which would be destroyed by Rome (Matthew 23:29-39).
At that time there would be a separation of the wicked from the righteous, the bad fish from the good fish. The good and bad fish are now seen to represent wicked and righteous people. The wicked are those who oppose the King and His kingdom; the righteous are those who love the King and His kingdom.
The separation of the wicked from the righteous means judgment for the wicked. Fire is used as a metaphor for judgment, and the experience of judgment is illustrated by “weeping and gnashing of teeth.” When pagan Israel is judged in 70 AD, there will be the anguish of knowing that Jesus and His followers had been vindicated. What He said would happen really happened. This is not a fate that befalls the wicked, but one they choose. They had the chance to change their destiny by making a wise choice in the chance that they were given, but they failed.
The parable is much more concerned with the fate of the wicked than of the righteous. The parable of the tares included the destiny of the righteous, but the parable of the dragnet does not. The first 2 parables in this series demonstrated what the righteous gain, which is joy. Thus, this parable serves to contrast the joy of the righteous, as depicted in the first 2 parables, with the agony of the wicked, as depicted in this one.
For the wicked, their ultimate tragedy is not the judgment they endure but the joy they forfeit. The ultimate tragedy is that they will be “away from the presence of the Lord” as it says in II Thessalonians 1:9. As seen in the first 2 parables, the presence of the Lord means infinite joy, but the wicked will have no idea of that joy.
For the wicked, the Lord is an enemy, and they will be in their own minds happiest if He keeps as far away from them as possible.
But they will miss out on the joy of Heaven, and the joy of living life in Christ. Thank God that one way or another, He shows us the kingdom and offers to take us there. Some of us stumble upon it; some of us search for it. We all get a look at it. It's joy. It's the joy of knowing that the King takes joy in us. That's joy enough for a lifetime - and eternity. So, what are you waiting for?
Don’t wait until the day we are all in the net together being separated to find out what will happen to you, make the decision today to have that joy in your life.
Let’s Pray |
