Kingdom Bitcoin
Matthew - Masterclass • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 28:03
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· 4 viewsKingdom Bitcoin Matthew 13:31–33; Matthew 13:44–52 The Kingdom of God is powerful and valuable beyond all reasonable expectations. Just a little bit can change everything. It is the best deal ever. This is what we have received... and what we have to share with others.
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The Kingdom of God is powerful and valuable beyond all reasonable expectations. Just a little bit can change everything. It is the best deal ever. This is what we have received... and what we have to share with others.
Beckett Baseball Guide
Beckett Baseball Guide
These are my father’s baseball cards. Don’t breathe to hard, these ancient artifacts could blow away in a breeze.
Growing up in the 80s and 90s, I lived through the absolute peak of baseball card collecting. Other sports were just getting started, Pokemon and Magic cards weren’t a thing yet… baseball cards were where it was at.
And we would drive to special baseball card stores to buy packs, some of them crazy fancy. For birthdays I would get a box with the whole year of Tops, every card Tops printed that year. I collected rookie cards and we would trade favorite players.
And we would look up in this magazine, Beckett, how much each of those cards were worth.
I still have all my cards in a different box.
But the real treasure was the day my Dad revealed to me that he too had collected baseball cards… and saved them.
We worked through that box of cards, my brother Jono, my cousin Eric and me. Looking up every card, finding the “valuable” ones and putting them in protective plastic.
This card was the ultimate find, a rookie Carl Yastrzemski card, at that time worth hundreds of dollars.
We freaked out, could not believe it.
Now the sad truth is that since that peak of card value, the vast majority of baseball cards has gone down.
This was not a secure treasure.
The Power of the Kingdom
The Power of the Kingdom
31 He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field.
32 It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”
Every time I hear this, my first thought is “Gross. Mustard.” My brother scarred me for life putting just PILES of mustard on everything. Not a fan.
Grain of a mustard seed. Teeny little seed. Just a little guy.
And it grows into this tree (or large bush). I like the bush better than the seed.
33 He told them another parable. “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened.”
Similar idea. It’s a little sugar fungi.
Teeny little organisms… and yet here’s a book on “How the Sugar Fungus Shaped Civilization.” Cultivation, bread, beer, chocolate, coffee.
Many times in Scripture, yeast is a metaphor for sin, but here it takes the opposite meaning. The radical power of the Kingdom, no matter how small the dose, it has the power to change everything.
Jesus teaches his disciples the insane multiplicative power of the Kingdom. And it makes sense when we remember what the “Kingdom” is. It is the Domain (dom) where the “King’s” will is done. And since this King is Jesus, God Himself, and His Will and Word spoke the Universe into being, the smallest sliver of His Kingdom is infinitely powerful.
We might use other illustrations today.
Understanding that the genetic code of the whole mustard tree is in the DNA of that seed, just add water and soil, we might also point to the complexity and majesty of a Blue Whale, or an Elephant, or a HUGE human being also growing from one single cell, too tiny to see.
Or more violently, the power in a single atom, Uranium isotope for example, the power to go Nuclear. Or two hydrogen atoms fusing to go Thermonuclear!
The disciples are looking around at the Kingdom as it is now, as Jesus is revealing it. Sure, there are some “crowds” gathering… but they all keep leaving and not hearing, and it comes back down to this little rag-tag group. Fishermen, tax collectors, zealots. Women! What can we do?
Jesus knows, it’s his plan, they are going to change the world.
Not in a theoretical sense, in a few hundred years the Emperor of Rome will bow the knee to King Jesus.
The tiniest sliver of “Infinite Cosmic Power” is… what? Math here? Infinity times 0.00001% is… Infinite Cosmic Power! Jesus is RADICALLY underselling it with mustard seeds and yeast, likely doesn’t want to break their brain.
But when it comes to the Kingdom of God, power is never the issue. There is infinite power available for the task. The only question is: what is the Will and Word of the King.
The Value of the Kingdom
The Value of the Kingdom
44 “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 that field.
Is he reluctant to buy? Obviously not!
One friend I had growing up, he was out one day shooting at some food, and up through the ground came a bubbling crude.
Oil that is. Texas Tea. Black Gold.
And the next thing you know, Ted was a MILLIONAIRE!
Let’s say he didn’t own the land before. Would he sell the little that he had to buy it? Everything he had!? Yes. Because he knows the incredible-but-hidden value. “I know something you don’t know”
It isn’t reluctant at all. “In his joy” he goes and sells all.
Jesus is clear that discipleship has a cost, it will cost you everything. Your life, take up your cross and follow. But those who know, who see the treasure, they sell all joyfully. Because it’s worth it.
The incredible power of the Kingdom. The infinite VALUE of the Kingdom of heaven.
45 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls,
46 who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.
Infinite value. This is “treasuring rightly” in Jesus’ language on the Mount.
51 “Have you understood all these things?” They said to him, “Yes.”
52 And he said to them, “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.”
Here it is the scribe. The disciples don’t think they are scribes, but they are going to be. Students of the Word, old and new. This is them, I think. The disciples devoted themselves to the Scriptures, finding Jesus on every page of the “Old” Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures. And writing down everything he had taught them, the “New” Testament.
Treasures upon treasures, seeing the Kingdom revealed backwards in time, for this was always God’s plan. And seeing the Kingdom revealed in their life, through their own words and work. Treasures old and new.
This is the incomparable power of the Kingdom of Heaven. The Kingdom of Jesus.
This is the infinite value of the Kingdom of Heaven. The Kingdom of Jesus.
Hidden in the pages of Scripture
Jesus teaches the incomparable power and infinite value of His Kingdom.
Valentine’s Day
Valentine’s Day
There are perhaps three different Saint Valentine’s, all of dubious historical validity. Some, I think 2 of those are associated with performing secret weddings against the authorities. For example, one in the 3rd century, marrying couples so the husbands wouldn’t have to go to war. And so we associate him with love.
But that isn’t why any of them are considered saints.
In all the stories, Saint Valentine is arrested for boldly declaring the name of Jesus, defending the divinity of Jesus, doing miracles in the name of Jesus… and killed as a martyr of Jesus Christ.
Laying down his life, selling it all, for the Kingdom of Heaven.
Despite the message of our culture, it is not romantic love, romantic or sexual or gender identity that defines our worth.
Those are a blessing from God, a beautiful gift, one of many rightly enjoyed just as He Created and Gifted it, righteous and holy in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Beckett Bible
Beckett Bible
What if I don’t see it? What if I don’t long for the Kingdom, I don’t see or experience the value yet?
The disciples didn’t. They didn’t get half of it, not a tenth of it.
And so, here is Jesus. He sees it. And he testifies to it.
Jesus says “Trust me, follow me, I see it.” Jesus leads them to see it, guides them to the treasure, all they have to do is listen long enough, follow far enough, to see and receive and understand it for themselves.
This is why we are students of the Word. Meeting weekly, reading daily, devoting ourselves to God’s Word as well as God Himself.
Because we are studying Treasure. We are Treasuring Rightly. And where we treasure, there our heart will be.
We are looking at the value, raising our understanding, our appreciation. We can’t raise it high enough, it’s value is infinite… but it is so hard for finite creatures to comprehend the infinite.
And so we are tempted to trade for the finite. For the temporary. For momentary pleasure.
We are tempted to trade pearls for snacks.
We are tempted to trade buried treasure for a handful of silver.
And so we listen to the guide, the light, the authority on what is valuable and what isn’t. We hear his testimony… and we begin to see.
“Have you understood all these things?”
And his disciples said “yes.”
Jesus teaches the incomparable power and infinite value of His Kingdom.
Testifying to the Kingdom
Testifying to the Kingdom
I hope that, even if you came in this room with all the questions in the world, you can know and believe that “they sure treasure the Kingdom!” “They sure love that Jesus, dude!”
This is my testimony: I am mortgaged out for the Kingdom. I am trading my time for it, I am bending my talents toward it, I am betting everything on it… with every expectation that it is INFINITELY worth it.
So… if you know the incredible power of the Kingdom. If you know the incomparable value of the Kingdom… do what Jesus does. Share it, shout it, teach it, preach it.
What’s the best, most valuable, most precious thing in my life? The Kingdom of God. I live in it, I walk in it, saved to it by Jesus Christ, filled with it by His Holy Spirit, sanctified, redeemed and blessed. And everywhere I go, there goes the Kingdom of God.
And if you don’t know, now you know.
Let us behold our King and His Kingdom.
