Andy Davis preaches an expository sermon on Matthew 13:51-52. The main subject of the sermon is the importance of understanding and delight in the riches of scripture.
Introduction
We’re looking this morning at two verses, Mathew 13, verses 51 and 52, bringing out new treasures as well as old. If you were a traveler in Munstermaifeld, Germany in the 18th century, around the 1740s, and you came to the Eltz Castle, you would have been the guests of Philip Karl Zu Eltz who lived in that castle. He inherited it from his ancestors who been there for seven centuries up to that point and would continue for another four after him. He would sit you down at a table and you would enjoy a feast such as you had never experienced before. They would bring in all different kinds of game and vegetables and you would eat to your heart’s content. After it was over, he might dazzle you with some of the treasures from his storeroom. He might send a servant down there, and they might bring out, for example, a 16th century crossbow which also had a flint lock on it, one of the earliest forms of firearms in Europe. He’d dazzled you with that and say, “Look what I have.” Or he might bring out a golden goblet which was inlaid with porcelain, a very rare combination at that time. Or some of his other porcelain treasures, some sculptures that he had bought from Italy, bringing them up out of his storeroom. He’d dazzle you with these things. But his favorite of all would be his electors ring, which had a little kind of trap door contraption in which he could switch out precious stones. He had 48 different precious stones which he would put in his ring depending on what clothes he was wearing. Whether it be a ruby or an emerald or some kind of a diamond, and he might bring out all 48 stones or just one and show it to you. You could maybe hold his ring and look at it. He would dazzle you with those kinds of treasures.
It could be that Jesus had this kind of thing in mind when He said, “Everyone, every teacher of the law, who’s been instructed about the Kingdom is like the owner of a grand house who has a store room, and in that store room he keeps these treasures and brings them out and shows them to his guests.” Jesus, in context, is speaking after having given us and given the church for twenty centuries of God’s people, seven treasures, the parables of Matthew 13. Jesus wants his disciples to understand those parables.
The Goal of Christ’s Instruction about the Kingdom
The Disciples’ Clear Understanding
Understanding is everything. His goal here is that his disciples would have a clear understanding of the treasures of the Word of God; that they would clearly understand what he’d said. In verse 51, He asked them a diagnostic question, “Have you understood all these things?” It’s a simple question at one level. Do you get it? Do you understand what I’ve been saying to you? But at a deeper level, we see that understanding is everything. Understanding is the key. Remember the parable “The Seed and the Soils” in verse 23. Jesus, in the parable of the seed and the soils, says that, “The Kingdom of Heaven advances by the proclamation of the Word of God. When anyone takes that Word in and understands it,” in verse 23, “he receives the Word as it were rich and overturned soil coming into his heart. It’s ready. He takes the Word into his mind and he understands it.” Do you see that? The one who received the seed that fell on good soil is a man who hears the Word and understands it. He produces a crop yielding a 100, 60 or 30 times what was sown.
Therefore, the indication is clear, without understanding of the Word, without an understanding of the message of the Kingdom, you’ll bear no fruit. You must understand this message; you must understand the parables and all the teachings. Understanding was the very thing that Christ intended to give them through the preaching of these parables. In Mark 4:33-34, it says, “There with many other parables Jesus spoke the Word to them as much as they could understand. He did not say anything to them without using a parable, but when He was alone with his own disciples, He explained everything.” Wouldn’t that have been wonderful to have Jesus not only teach you the parables but then explain the details of what they all meant? His goal was that they would have a clear understanding.
Christian growth begins in the mind; it begins with the understanding. If you don’t understand the message about the Kingdom, you’re not saved. That’s the parable of the seed and the soils, the hard-packed soil. When anyone hears the message of the Word and does not understand it, he’s like that down-trodden path and then the devil comes and snatches away what was sown in the heart. There must be an understanding of the Word of God. Jesus’s desire here is that they would have a clear understanding. The psalmist in Psalm 119:34 prayed for this when he said, “Give me understanding, and I will keep your law and obey it with all my heart.” There’s a connection between understanding the Word of God, the law of God, and then how you live.
If you don’t understand his Word, you can’t live according to it, and so “Give me understanding,” he prayed. I pray that prayer. When I’m having my quiet time, I say, “Lord, teach me your Word; give me understanding, so that I might obey what you want me to do. Without the understanding I cannot obey.” Or again, Psalm 119:144, it says, “Your statutes are forever right. Give me understanding that I may live.” Our life depends on understanding the Word of God, and we must have this understanding. Proverbs 2:6 says, “For the Lord gives wisdom, and from His mouth come knowledge and understanding.” So, Jesus the Lord sought to give his disciples understanding, and he asked them, “Have you understood all these things?” He wants them to have a clear understanding of the nature of the Kingdom through the seven parables.
The Disciples’ Comprehensive Understanding
His second goal is not just clear understanding, but comprehensive understanding. “Have you understood all these things?” He says. I love their answer. “Yes, we get it, we get it all; we’ve got the whole thing. We’re ready for a PhD in the Kingdom of Heaven.” Oh, no they weren’t. We’ll get to that in a minute. He says he wants them to have a comprehensive understanding. “Have you understood all these things?” The context again is the seven parables. He’s given them all of these parables to teach them the nature of the Kingdom of Heaven. That was Jesus’s proclamation ministry. He came and proclaimed this message, he said, “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” That was the nature of his preaching. If you said, “What is the Kingdom of Heaven?”, you listen to Jesus, after a while and he’s always talking about the Kingdom, what is the Kingdom? He told these parables that there might be a deeper understanding for the spiritual beggars who had the humility to come and ask him, who had the humility to come and say, “I don’t get it, teach me.” They did, they asked,” What does it mean?” Jesus said, “I will explain it to you.” The parable of the seed and the soils teaches us that the Kingdom of Heaven advances by the hearing of the proclaimed Word of God. When you hear it and receive it into a good and noble heart that’s ready to receive the Word of God, you’re going to bear fruit. But there are other ways to receive the Word. You could receive it, and for a little while, enjoy it, but then when trouble comes, you’ll fall away, or you might be choked out by the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth, and so he talks about the nature of hearing the Word of God, believing it.
In the parable of the mustard seed, He asked, “Have you understood that the Kingdom of Heaven starts small like a mustard seed but grows so spectacularly that it’s going to kind of dominate world history; it’s going to be a big outward showy thing. So big and so showy that the birds of the air can come and perch in the branches of the mustard plant. Have you understood that that’s what the Kingdom is like? Or thirdly, have you understood that it’s also like yeast, which also grows but in a kind of a hidden, internal, mysterious way. So, you really can’t tell what’s going on from the outside. As you look at it, there’s all kinds of stuff going on, but it’s invisible; it’s hidden. At the end though, it will have permeated the whole world; it will have affected all of human history, and every individual in the Kingdom as well. Complete permeation, it will take you over. Have you understood that? Have you understood the treasure hidden in the field? The fact that the Kingdom is so valuable that it’s worth selling everything that you have to own it. And you may not even have been looking for it; you may have just stumbled across it as you want across a field, but there it is. And suddenly you realize that this one thing, the Kingdom of Heaven, was worth infinitely more than anything you possessed. Have you understood that about the Kingdom? That it’s worth it to trade everything for this one thing. Or the pearl of great price, teaching the same lesson, but saying it also is what satisfies you for what you have been searching for all your life. Like the merchant who’s looking for that perfect pearl, and when he finds it, he realizes, immediately, the value, the size, the sheen, the perfection of the sphere. He knows it’s worth his entire stock; he’s willing to trade it all to get that one pearl. Have you understood that? Or have you understood the parable of the wheat and the tares, the fact that the Kingdom is going to advance in a world in which most of the people around you will not believe its message. It’s going to be a mixed situation, it’s going to be agonizingly slow for that reason, and that there’s going to be a torturous conflict between the wheat and the tares, and it’s not going to be resolved until the end of the world. There’s going to be wheat and there’s going to be weeds, and you can’t tell the difference. The Kingdom is going to be made up of people that look like friends, but they’re really enemies. The world is going to be made up of people that look like enemies, but they’re going to be friends, and you can’t tell the difference, only God can. He’s going to be working out His advance in this mixed situation. Have you understood this? Have you understood the dragnet, the fact that the Kingdom is going to advance silently and gather up all people into its net? They won’t feel it; they won’t know it’s happening, but their time is going to run out, and when it runs out, there’s judgement day, and the judgment will separate every single human being into one of two categories: Believer and unbeliever. And the believers, the righteous, will shine like the sun in the Kingdom of their Father, but the wicked will perish eternally in hell.” These are the seven parables. He says, “Have you understood all this?”
The immediate context here is this array. But I think the ultimate context of Jesus’s question is, not just his seven parables but really all of Scripture. “Have you understood Scripture? Have you understood what I’m trying to teach you?” Jesus said, “I didn’t come to abolish the law and the prophets. I did not come to abolish the Old Covenant. I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. I tell you the truth, until Heaven and Earth pass away, not the smallest letter and not the least stroke of a pen,” jot and tittle in the KJV, “not even the slightest part of the Word of God, the Old Testament, will disappear until everything is fulfilled.” Jesus had a passion that all of Scripture be fulfilled. The Old Testament is eternal. The New Testament didn’t exist when Jesus spoke this, but it was getting written on the hearts and minds of the apostles, and some day they would write it down. Jesus testified that that also would be eternal, for he said, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words,” plural, my words, “will never pass away.” My nouns, my verbs, my adjectives, my syntax, will still be with us 20 centuries later.” People like me are going to come and parse it through, work it through. “Think about it; it’s still going to be with us. It’s eternal. Have you understood all these things?”
The Apostle Paul said in Acts 20:27, of the whole counsel of God’s word, “I’ve not shrunk back from, I’ve not hesitated from proclaiming to you the whole counsel of God. The treasures of the Old Testament, the treasures of the Kingdom of Heaven. Have you understood all these things?” Now, we already alluded to their answer, but I think it’s so beautiful. Have you understood it all? “Yes, we get it.” “Oh really, why don’t you explain it to me, then, since you understand it all.” Actually, the movement of understanding in the disciples from absolute darkness and total ignorance to being able to write the New Testament is breath taking. It’s really quite stunning to see their development. There was so much about the Kingdom that they really did not understand. They didn’t understand Jesus’s miraculous power. When Jesus walked on the water, they were terrified and thought he was a ghost, and they cried out in fear. Then Mark says, “They were completely amazed for they had not understood about the loaves.” Their hearts were hardened. They didn’t understand the feeding of the 5,000, so therefore they couldn’t understand the walking on the water. They didn’t know what it signified that Jesus was doing these signs. They didn’t know that he was the incarnate Son of God. They didn’t understand. Their hearts were hardened.
They didn’t understand his figures of speech, his way of speaking. When he declared all foods clean. He said, “Though anything that goes into the mouth passes out the body, and therefore all foods are clean.” They didn’t get it, and they came and asked him about it. Jesus said in Matthew 15:16, “Are you still so dull?” That’s very interesting. It’s kind of sharp from the Prince of Peace, isn’t it? “Are you still so dull? Don’t you understand that everything that enters the mouth, goes into the stomach, and then out of the body, it doesn’t defile you spiritually?” The word dull means thick, senseless, ignorant, slow to understand. He’s kind of amazed at it. Like the time that they forgot to bring the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” They’re arguing saying, “It’s your turn to bring the bread. Didn’t you bring the bread?” And Jesus said, “You of little faith. Why are you talking among yourselves about having no bread? Do you still not understand? Don’t you understand about the feeding of the 5,000, how many basketsful you gathered? How is it that you don’t understand that I was not telling you to guard against the yeast used in bread, but against the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” They didn’t understand his way of speaking.
They didn’t understand the symbolic actions. They didn’t get it when He cleansed the temple, when He made that whip and cleansed the temple. They didn’t know what that meant; it was only later they understood. They didn’t understand it at the time of the triumphal entry. They didn’t know what it signified. They had a complete misunderstanding of what that signified. They thought the Kingdom was coming now, but it wasn’t. When Jesus washed their feet. I don’t know how many it was, but he came to Peter and Peter said, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” That’s an odd question, isn’t it? “No, I’m going to skip you, Peter, and I’m going to go on to the next one. Of course, I’m going to wash your feet.” But Jesus didn’t say that, He said, “You do not understand now what I’m doing, but later, you will understand.”
They did not understand the symbolic actions, but above all, they did not understand His death. They didn’t; they weren’t ready for it. They could not comprehend why He needed to die. Consistently, this was hidden from them. In Luke Chapter 9, verse 44 and following, it says, “Jesus said to them, ‘Listen carefully to what I’m about to tell you. The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men.’” But they did not understand what this meant. It was hidden from them, so that they did not grasp it and they were afraid to ask him about it.” The same thing happened again in Luke 18 when He warned them that He was going to be betrayed to the chief priests and teachers of the law, that they were going to scourge him and hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and it says again in Luke 18, “They did not understand this.” Even in John 16, where Jesus is working so intimately with them, teaching them, preparing them for all of the things that they’re going to face, He says, “In a little while, you will not see me. And then after a little while, you will see me.” And they said, “We don’t know what he’s talking about, a little while we won’t. And then after a little while we will. We don’t understand it, it’s hidden from us; we don’t get what he’s saying.” They didn’t understand his death. The very central reason why He came and took on a body they didn’t understand, and neither did they understand his resurrection. When John and Peter were at the tomb, and they were looking at the physical evidence of the resurrection, they saw and believed it said, but they still did not understand from Scripture that he had to rise from the dead. So, Jesus, in Matthew 13, says, “Have you understood all these things?” “Oh yes Lord, yes.”
We also are so confident in our knowledge of the Word of God, aren’t we? We’re so confident that we’ve got it all figured out, our theology is all arranged. We understand Matthew; we understand the whole Bible. Really? Could it be that God has more things to teach us? Could it be that our understanding needs to be infinitely deeper than it is? He wants them to have a comprehensive understanding, and when the Holy Spirit came, He guided them into all truth. He finished their discipleship. He enabled them as apostles to write the New Testament, to write down the new treasures. So, they became, along with the Old Testament prophets, the foundation for the church. In Ephesians 2, “Built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.” Yes, at the end of their training, they understood. Now in Heaven, they understand perfectly, but at the time, they did not have full understanding. So, Christ’s goal here is not just that they have clear understanding, but that they would have a comprehensive understanding, and that’s a lifetime journey, isn’t it? A lifetime journey of leadership by the power of the Holy Spirit, until you really do understand the Word of God.
The Disciples’ Delight in the Scripture
But thirdly, He didn’t just want them to understand. Oh no, that’s not enough. He wants them to be delighted in these treasures. He wants the Word of God to inflame their hearts. Not a cold knowledge and ability to pass a theology exam, that’s not enough. It has to be knowledge on fire; it has to be a delight in the Word of God, and so He uses the treasure analogy. That they would have rich delight in the Word. Look at verse 52, He said to them, “Therefore every teacher of the law who’s been instructed about the Kingdom of Heaven, is like the owner of a house, who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old.” This is the image is of a wealthy landowner, homeowner, who has got a treasure chest or perhaps a treasure room. He can send some servants down and bring some things up and dazzle the eyes of his guests with some old things that he’s had for a long time, maybe passed down from generation and generation, and some new treasures that he’s just acquired. He’s going to show them now what he’s got. He’s talking clearly not about physical treasures but treasures of truth, treasures of the Word of God. Every teacher of the law who’s become a full disciple and been instructed about the Kingdom of Heaven can bring out these kinds of treasures. They’re not physical treasures. They are treasures of Scripture. Without instruction about the Kingdom, the Old Testament is dark and mysterious. It really doesn’t make much sense, but the instruction about the Kingdom of Heaven brings these dark things out into full light, so we can understand them.
The Old Testament then becomes a sure and unmovable foundation for the Kingdom of Heaven. We start to understand the old treasures, namely the Old Covenant. The well-instructed scribe, the teacher of the law, can bring out treasure after treasure. The Old Testament starts to make sense. Genesis 1, the creation in which the King makes the world; creates it with the breath of his mouth, and therefore has the right and authority to make laws and rules by which it’s to be governed. He gives a law to Adam that he should not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He has the right to do that, and He has the right also to sit in judgment over Adam to see what he will do. We also understand that man was created in the image of God but fell in the garden and sinned and became a wicked lawbreaker. He rebelled against the king, rebelled against his commands, and therefore stands under the judgment and the curse of God.
Then we understand the call of Abraham, the redemptive purpose of God as He called out Abraham and said, “Through him, all peoples on Earth will be blessed.” We start to see the preparation, the setting of the table for the feast that will be the Kingdom of Heaven. These things begin to make sense. The Holy of Holies in the tabernacle becomes a symbol of Christ’s actual body. The new and living way where we can have face-to-face fellowship with God in the New Covenant. Everything starts to make sense; the blood sacrifice, the animal sacrifice, a preparation for the bloody sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Substitution being established. The sacrifice died, and we didn’t. The transfer of guilt onto the head of the lamb, and the guilty one goes free. We understand these things, and frankly, I think that the animal sacrificial system makes no sense apart from the cross of Calvary. Why would God do that? But then with the old treasure combined with the new, all of a sudden everything starts to make sense. We start to see the whole picture, the ceremonial laws of Moses, the law of circumcision; physical circumcision in the Old Testament, a spiritual circumcision in the New, where our hearts are circumcised and prepared to accept Christ. The three feasts of Moses: The Passover, and the First Fruits, and the Final Fruits. Two of them fulfilled, one of them yet to be fulfilled. Jesus is our Passover lamb; His blood was shed so that the angel of destruction death might pass over us, and we might not receive the wrath we deserve. Pentecost, the First Fruits, the first harvest being brought into the storehouse as people, 3,000 of them, believe in Christ and are brought in. Is the final harvest done yet? No. Therefore we’re waiting for the Feast of Trumpets, that final harvest, when all of the things are brought in and we can celebrate the Final Fruits.
The Kingdom of Heaven explains the Old Testament, the old treasures. The moral laws of Moses, “You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, shall not steal, and all the other commandments like that, now written on our hearts by the Holy Spirit, a fiery finger of the Holy Spirit, so that we know how to live. The law of God now written inside us, not on tablets of stone external to us, but actually written on our hearts and our minds by the power of the Spirit. The Psalms become the prayers of children of God. Endued with energy and strength by the Holy Spirit, we can pray the Psalms back to our Heavenly Father. I would say that every emotional state you could find in your life, you’re going to find somewhere in the Psalms. They become your prayer language. Proverbs, a wise way, a practical way of living every day, walking in the footsteps of Jesus who is wisdom incarnate. The Word of God comes alive. Old treasures become what they really are, treasures. The mysteries of Daniel’s prophecies, of this rock cut out but not by human hands, destroying all of these kingdoms in itself becoming a Kingdom that takes over the whole world; all of a sudden that makes sense. We see these old treasures in the light of the new.
Christ’s fourth goal is that the disciples would have a fruitful teaching ministry themselves, so He uses this idea of scribes or teachers of the law using every teacher of the law who has become a disciple of the Kingdom. In Jesus’s day, the scribes spent their whole-time copying Scripture. They didn’t have the kind of word processors, or printing press, or any of the things that we have today. For anyone to have a Scripture, it had to be hand-copied. The scribes were the copyists. The first scribes, according to the book of Moses, were kings. In Deuteronomy 17:18, the Law of Moses says, “Now it shall come about when he, the king, sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself a copy of this law on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priest.” So, the king actually took pen in hand and would copy the law himself; probably later on the kings didn’t do this but hired people to do it for them. But I think it’s so sweet that the kings themselves were supposed to make their own copies. They were the first scribes. Joshua was a scribe; he took on a scroll and wrote the whole law of Moses out [Joshua 8:32]. In the presence of the Levites, the Israelites, he wrote the Law of Moses. Then came a whole group of scribes who spent their whole time writing and copying the Word of God. Second Chronicles 34:13 says some of the Levites were scribes. Ezra was a Godly scribe, who separated himself out that he might understand the Word and instruct it. He’s described in the book of Ezra 7:10. “Ezra had devoted himself to the study and observance of the Law of the Lord and to teaching its decrees and laws in Israel.” In Nehemiah 8, “He gathers all of the remnant that’s come back from the exile and they stand there all day, and he instructs them from the Word.” What a delightful time as Ezra, the godly scribe, teacher of law, is teaching them.
The problem was in Jesus’s day, most of them were not godly, but were his bitterest enemies, who fought against Him and who could not accept the new treasures, the new wine as it were, of the Kingdom of Heaven. They fought against it through traditionalism. They were not instructed about the Kingdom of Heaven; therefore, they could not accept the new treasures, only the old, and the old treasures become worthless without the new. You can’t understand them; they have no value. So, Jesus says, “I’m looking for a new generation of scribes, of teachers of the law who will accept both old treasures and new.” Fully instructed about the Kingdom of Heaven, He doesn’t want the disciples merely to have a clear understanding, or a comprehensive understanding of the Kingdom, and He doesn’t just want them to delight in it themselves; he wants them to be teachers of it. This is the essence of the teaching ministry of the apostles. They were not simply to hoard these things in, but they were to bring out of their storeroom and show these new treasures and old to everyone. Jesus says, “All authority in Heaven and Earth has been given to me, therefore go and make learners; make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded.” Bring out these treasures; show them the old treasures and the new, a new generation of Spirit-filled scribes, teaches of the Law, who understand the Kingdom of Heaven, and who also understand the value of the Old Covenant.
Application: Expository Preaching
expository preaching
What kind of applications would Christ give us from these things? First, I’m going to establish or pronounce before you that the best kind of preaching is expository preaching. It’s a bringing out, that’s what “exposition” means. You’re bringing up out of the text and showing the treasures that are in the text. Grievously many evangelical churches will settle for far less than those treasures. They will settle for the preacher’s best jokes and stories. I have some good jokes actually. But I don’t think that this is the place for that, I really don’t. I mean, I can entertain you, but you’ll go home the same as when you came in. The Word of God has transforming power. If we bring out these treasures and show them for what they are, treasures, true treasures, old and new, you’ll be transformed by the renewing of your mind. You will gain a clear and comprehensive understanding of the Kingdom of Heaven, and you’ll never be the same again. So, I’m advocating expository preaching. Somebody put it this way, and I think this is so delightful. The role of the preacher is similar to that which is done for pearls. We talked a little while I go about the pearl of great price and how valuable they were. Back in the old days, they didn’t culture them, but you had to dive down to the bottom of the bay to bring up these oysters and maybe only one out of 100 would have any pearl at all in it. But they’d go down, they would dive down and bring up these oysters, open them up, and there would be the pearl. But it’s just a loose pearl, needs to be cleaned up. It’s not jewelry yet; it’s got to be brought to a jeweler who then knows how to put it together in a strand perhaps, or set it in a setting, so it becomes a beautiful brooch. Therefore, I think a good preacher is going to both do the diving down of exposition to bring up truths. You’ve got Greek and Hebrew and logic and grammar and systematic theology and all of these things. But that’s not a sermon yet, is it? It’s raw material for a message, but it’s not an actual message. It’s got to be set into something beautiful so it’s attractive and winsome and appealing. That’s the work of a jeweler. So, there’s a proclamation of the beautiful truths of the Word of God. Never settle for anything less than that, whatever church you’re in. That you would have this kind of exposition so that the treasures really are treasures, the treasures of the Word of God and not of some human opinion or running commentary on politics or other things like that. You don’t need that; you need the Word of God, and you need the Kingdom of Heaven to be explained. Psalm 119:130 says, “The unfolding of the opening of your words gives great light; it gives understanding to the simple.” My job is to unfold the Word for you. All godly teachers should do the same.
biblical theology
Secondly, biblical theology. What do I mean by biblical theology? Well, that’s a technical term for people. I don’t just mean theology that’s biblical. I mean that, but I mean more than that. Systematic theology is an organization of all of what the Bible says topically; all of what it says about God, about the Trinity, about Christ as redeemer. It’s about atonement, redemption, prayer, angels, and the final judgment, topically. We’ve been going through a systematic theology course, not in the summer, but that’s what we were doing before. That’s beneficial, but that’s not what I’m talking about. Biblical theology sees the entire picture of the Bible, the single story that the 66 books are telling and teaching; kind of like a tapestry, if you would. There’s the Bayeux Tapestry, which talks about the Battle of Hastings 1066, and it’s 230 feet long and about 20 inches wide, and there’s all these little scenes taken from that significant battle. And it’s just rolled out, and you can look. And by looking at the whole thing, you get the whole story of the Battle of Hastings. Systematic theology would take all of the green strands from the tapestry and put them in one place, all the red strands in another, all the blue strands in another, etcetera. But biblical theology takes and sees the whole picture, the whole tapestry, for all the story that it’s telling.
And what story is it telling? It’s telling the story of a holy and righteous God, a king who has the right to make laws and has the right to enforce them and judge them, and whose judgment on the breaking of his laws is death, and who has spoken a death penalty over the sinful human race but has paid the death penalty through His son, Jesus Christ. Through simple faith in Christ, your death penalty can be paid. That’s the story. Biblical theology. The whole big picture. Are you saved? Has your death penalty been paid? Do you have the treasure of eternal life today? If you’re not sure whether you have eternal life, whether you’ve ever trusted in Christ, you must not leave this building without being sure. Talk to me, talk to some others who know the Lord and say, “I want to be saved. I want my sins forgiven through faith in Christ. My soul is worth more than the entire world. Jesus said so. “What would it profit you to gain the whole world and forfeit your soul?” But the big picture of biblical theology is the story of redemption. The history of redemption.
give the whole counsel of good’s word
Thirdly, give the whole counsel of God’s Word, old treasures and new, all of them. Everything that God says to us is a treasure. There’s no trash in the Bible. Even though doctrine, some of them may be controversial and difficult to hear, I think sometimes those are the ones we need to hear the most, because that’s where we’re farthest from God’s way of thinking. have come to delight in all of the Word of God and to embrace it, no matter what the cost. We should embrace the whole counsel of God as a treasure. I don’t want anything that God doesn’t want to give me. Do you? I want all that He does want to give me. There’s a correction that comes. Paul says, “I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole counsel of God.”
Biblical evangelism
Fourth, there is biblical evangelism, that you would share… Could you share Christ just from the old treasures? The apostles did. Could you just share Christ from the Old Testament? Could you do Psalm 22? Could you do the Son of Man vision in Daniel 7? Could you see the value and richness of the old treasure because the old treasure is Christ, just as the new treasure is? I had a plane flight back from China one time with a lady who was born in Israel, served in the Israeli army and had a rabbi who was her best friend. She was Jewish, and we had about eight hours together, much to her dismay, I guess. But we had a good time talking. She had never looked at the Son of Man vision in Daniel 7. She said she’s going to ask her rabbi this week. That was two years ago, I don’t know if she did. Who is the Son of Man? To be able to proclaim the Gospel from all of Scripture is biblical evangelism. Share the light. Do you delight in the Word of God, is it your treasure? Are you eager to learn more about the Bible? Are you hungry and thirsty for it? To have no interest in the Scripture is a great mark that you are probably not born again, but God puts within us a hunger and thirst to know his mind, to understand his word. Are you hungry and thirsty? Do you have a delight in the Word of God? And finally, do you demonstrate that delight by a very practical thing called a daily quiet time? Do you get up early in the morning and open the Bible and study it, or perhaps late in the evening, or some time? Do you have a set apart time in which you are taking in the Word of God as your body takes in physical food, feasting on the word, meditating on it, taking it in? Fathers, are you gathering your families around the family altar that you might open the Word of God and show them by your example, how much you treasure the Word? Is this something that you’re doing? I pray that you would. Christ has set before us, not just in this one text but in all the Bible, in 66 books, old treasures as well as new. Sometimes I think of this text in terms of old treasures, of things I’ve already learned and they’re still treasures, but there’s still a lot of new ones I haven’t discovered yet. I’m urging you to go on a voyage of discovery through the Scripture and find the treasures he has for you.
Introduction
We’re looking this morning at two verses, Mathew 13, verses 51 and 52, bringing out new treasures as well as old. If you were a traveler in Munstermaifeld, Germany in the 18th century, around the 1740s, and you came to the Eltz Castle, you would have been the guests of Philip Karl Zu Eltz who lived in that castle. He inherited it from his ancestors who been there for seven centuries up to that point and would continue for another four after him. He would sit you down at a table and you would enjoy a feast such as you had never experienced before. They would bring in all different kinds of game and vegetables and you would eat to your heart’s content. After it was over, he might dazzle you with some of the treasures from his storeroom. He might send a servant down there, and they might bring out, for example, a 16th century crossbow which also had a flint lock on it, one of the earliest forms of firearms in Europe. He’d dazzled you with that and say, “Look what I have.” Or he might bring out a golden goblet which was inlaid with porcelain, a very rare combination at that time. Or some of his other porcelain treasures, some sculptures that he had bought from Italy, bringing them up out of his storeroom. He’d dazzle you with these things. But his favorite of all would be his electors ring, which had a little kind of trap door contraption in which he could switch out precious stones. He had 48 different precious stones which he would put in his ring depending on what clothes he was wearing. Whether it be a ruby or an emerald or some kind of a diamond, and he might bring out all 48 stones or just one and show it to you. You could maybe hold his ring and look at it. He would dazzle you with those kinds of treasures.
It could be that Jesus had this kind of thing in mind when He said, “Everyone, every teacher of the law, who’s been instructed about the Kingdom is like the owner of a grand house who has a store room, and in that store room he keeps these treasures and brings them out and shows them to his guests.” Jesus, in context, is speaking after having given us and given the church for twenty centuries of God’s people, seven treasures, the parables of Matthew 13. Jesus wants his disciples to understand those parables.
The Goal of Christ’s Instruction about the Kingdom
The Disciples’ Clear Understanding
Understanding is everything. His goal here is that his disciples would have a clear understanding of the treasures of the Word of God; that they would clearly understand what he’d said. In verse 51, He asked them a diagnostic question, “Have you understood all these things?” It’s a simple question at one level. Do you get it? Do you understand what I’ve been saying to you? But at a deeper level, we see that understanding is everything. Understanding is the key. Remember the parable “The Seed and the Soils” in verse 23. Jesus, in the parable of the seed and the soils, says that, “The Kingdom of Heaven advances by the proclamation of the Word of God. When anyone takes that Word in and understands it,” in verse 23, “he receives the Word as it were rich and overturned soil coming into his heart. It’s ready. He takes the Word into his mind and he understands it.” Do you see that? The one who received the seed that fell on good soil is a man who hears the Word and understands it. He produces a crop yielding a 100, 60 or 30 times what was sown.
Therefore, the indication is clear, without understanding of the Word, without an understanding of the message of the Kingdom, you’ll bear no fruit. You must understand this message; you must understand the parables and all the teachings. Understanding was the very thing that Christ intended to give them through the preaching of these parables. In Mark 4:33-34, it says, “There with many other parables Jesus spoke the Word to them as much as they could understand. He did not say anything to them without using a parable, but when He was alone with his own disciples, He explained everything.” Wouldn’t that have been wonderful to have Jesus not only teach you the parables but then explain the details of what they all meant? His goal was that they would have a clear understanding.
Christian growth begins in the mind; it begins with the understanding. If you don’t understand the message about the Kingdom, you’re not saved. That’s the parable of the seed and the soils, the hard-packed soil. When anyone hears the message of the Word and does not understand it, he’s like that down-trodden path and then the devil comes and snatches away what was sown in the heart. There must be an understanding of the Word of God. Jesus’s desire here is that they would have a clear understanding. The psalmist in Psalm 119:34 prayed for this when he said, “Give me understanding, and I will keep your law and obey it with all my heart.” There’s a connection between understanding the Word of God, the law of God, and then how you live.
If you don’t understand his Word, you can’t live according to it, and so “Give me understanding,” he prayed. I pray that prayer. When I’m having my quiet time, I say, “Lord, teach me your Word; give me understanding, so that I might obey what you want me to do. Without the understanding I cannot obey.” Or again, Psalm 119:144, it says, “Your statutes are forever right. Give me understanding that I may live.” Our life depends on understanding the Word of God, and we must have this understanding. Proverbs 2:6 says, “For the Lord gives wisdom, and from His mouth come knowledge and understanding.” So, Jesus the Lord sought to give his disciples understanding, and he asked them, “Have you understood all these things?” He wants them to have a clear understanding of the nature of the Kingdom through the seven parables.
The Disciples’ Comprehensive Understanding
His second goal is not just clear understanding, but comprehensive understanding. “Have you understood all these things?” He says. I love their answer. “Yes, we get it, we get it all; we’ve got the whole thing. We’re ready for a PhD in the Kingdom of Heaven.” Oh, no they weren’t. We’ll get to that in a minute. He says he wants them to have a comprehensive understanding. “Have you understood all these things?” The context again is the seven parables. He’s given them all of these parables to teach them the nature of the Kingdom of Heaven. That was Jesus’s proclamation ministry. He came and proclaimed this message, he said, “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” That was the nature of his preaching. If you said, “What is the Kingdom of Heaven?”, you listen to Jesus, after a while and he’s always talking about the Kingdom, what is the Kingdom? He told these parables that there might be a deeper understanding for the spiritual beggars who had the humility to come and ask him, who had the humility to come and say, “I don’t get it, teach me.” They did, they asked,” What does it mean?” Jesus said, “I will explain it to you.” The parable of the seed and the soils teaches us that the Kingdom of Heaven advances by the hearing of the proclaimed Word of God. When you hear it and receive it into a good and noble heart that’s ready to receive the Word of God, you’re going to bear fruit. But there are other ways to receive the Word. You could receive it, and for a little while, enjoy it, but then when trouble comes, you’ll fall away, or you might be choked out by the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth, and so he talks about the nature of hearing the Word of God, believing it.
In the parable of the mustard seed, He asked, “Have you understood that the Kingdom of Heaven starts small like a mustard seed but grows so spectacularly that it’s going to kind of dominate world history; it’s going to be a big outward showy thing. So big and so showy that the birds of the air can come and perch in the branches of the mustard plant. Have you understood that that’s what the Kingdom is like? Or thirdly, have you understood that it’s also like yeast, which also grows but in a kind of a hidden, internal, mysterious way. So, you really can’t tell what’s going on from the outside. As you look at it, there’s all kinds of stuff going on, but it’s invisible; it’s hidden. At the end though, it will have permeated the whole world; it will have affected all of human history, and every individual in the Kingdom as well. Complete permeation, it will take you over. Have you understood that? Have you understood the treasure hidden in the field? The fact that the Kingdom is so valuable that it’s worth selling everything that you have to own it. And you may not even have been looking for it; you may have just stumbled across it as you want across a field, but there it is. And suddenly you realize that this one thing, the Kingdom of Heaven, was worth infinitely more than anything you possessed. Have you understood that about the Kingdom? That it’s worth it to trade everything for this one thing. Or the pearl of great price, teaching the same lesson, but saying it also is what satisfies you for what you have been searching for all your life. Like the merchant who’s looking for that perfect pearl, and when he finds it, he realizes, immediately, the value, the size, the sheen, the perfection of the sphere. He knows it’s worth his entire stock; he’s willing to trade it all to get that one pearl. Have you understood that? Or have you understood the parable of the wheat and the tares, the fact that the Kingdom is going to advance in a world in which most of the people around you will not believe its message. It’s going to be a mixed situation, it’s going to be agonizingly slow for that reason, and that there’s going to be a torturous conflict between the wheat and the tares, and it’s not going to be resolved until the end of the world. There’s going to be wheat and there’s going to be weeds, and you can’t tell the difference. The Kingdom is going to be made up of people that look like friends, but they’re really enemies. The world is going to be made up of people that look like enemies, but they’re going to be friends, and you can’t tell the difference, only God can. He’s going to be working out His advance in this mixed situation. Have you understood this? Have you understood the dragnet, the fact that the Kingdom is going to advance silently and gather up all people into its net? They won’t feel it; they won’t know it’s happening, but their time is going to run out, and when it runs out, there’s judgement day, and the judgment will separate every single human being into one of two categories: Believer and unbeliever. And the believers, the righteous, will shine like the sun in the Kingdom of their Father, but the wicked will perish eternally in hell.” These are the seven parables. He says, “Have you understood all this?”
The immediate context here is this array. But I think the ultimate context of Jesus’s question is, not just his seven parables but really all of Scripture. “Have you understood Scripture? Have you understood what I’m trying to teach you?” Jesus said, “I didn’t come to abolish the law and the prophets. I did not come to abolish the Old Covenant. I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. I tell you the truth, until Heaven and Earth pass away, not the smallest letter and not the least stroke of a pen,” jot and tittle in the KJV, “not even the slightest part of the Word of God, the Old Testament, will disappear until everything is fulfilled.” Jesus had a passion that all of Scripture be fulfilled. The Old Testament is eternal. The New Testament didn’t exist when Jesus spoke this, but it was getting written on the hearts and minds of the apostles, and some day they would write it down. Jesus testified that that also would be eternal, for he said, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words,” plural, my words, “will never pass away.” My nouns, my verbs, my adjectives, my syntax, will still be with us 20 centuries later.” People like me are going to come and parse it through, work it through. “Think about it; it’s still going to be with us. It’s eternal. Have you understood all these things?”
The Apostle Paul said in Acts 20:27, of the whole counsel of God’s word, “I’ve not shrunk back from, I’ve not hesitated from proclaiming to you the whole counsel of God. The treasures of the Old Testament, the treasures of the Kingdom of Heaven. Have you understood all these things?” Now, we already alluded to their answer, but I think it’s so beautiful. Have you understood it all? “Yes, we get it.” “Oh really, why don’t you explain it to me, then, since you understand it all.” Actually, the movement of understanding in the disciples from absolute darkness and total ignorance to being able to write the New Testament is breath taking. It’s really quite stunning to see their development. There was so much about the Kingdom that they really did not understand. They didn’t understand Jesus’s miraculous power. When Jesus walked on the water, they were terrified and thought he was a ghost, and they cried out in fear. Then Mark says, “They were completely amazed for they had not understood about the loaves.” Their hearts were hardened. They didn’t understand the feeding of the 5,000, so therefore they couldn’t understand the walking on the water. They didn’t know what it signified that Jesus was doing these signs. They didn’t know that he was the incarnate Son of God. They didn’t understand. Their hearts were hardened.
They didn’t understand his figures of speech, his way of speaking. When he declared all foods clean. He said, “Though anything that goes into the mouth passes out the body, and therefore all foods are clean.” They didn’t get it, and they came and asked him about it. Jesus said in Matthew 15:16, “Are you still so dull?” That’s very interesting. It’s kind of sharp from the Prince of Peace, isn’t it? “Are you still so dull? Don’t you understand that everything that enters the mouth, goes into the stomach, and then out of the body, it doesn’t defile you spiritually?” The word dull means thick, senseless, ignorant, slow to understand. He’s kind of amazed at it. Like the time that they forgot to bring the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” They’re arguing saying, “It’s your turn to bring the bread. Didn’t you bring the bread?” And Jesus said, “You of little faith. Why are you talking among yourselves about having no bread? Do you still not understand? Don’t you understand about the feeding of the 5,000, how many basketsful you gathered? How is it that you don’t understand that I was not telling you to guard against the yeast used in bread, but against the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” They didn’t understand his way of speaking.
They didn’t understand the symbolic actions. They didn’t get it when He cleansed the temple, when He made that whip and cleansed the temple. They didn’t know what that meant; it was only later they understood. They didn’t understand it at the time of the triumphal entry. They didn’t know what it signified. They had a complete misunderstanding of what that signified. They thought the Kingdom was coming now, but it wasn’t. When Jesus washed their feet. I don’t know how many it was, but he came to Peter and Peter said, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” That’s an odd question, isn’t it? “No, I’m going to skip you, Peter, and I’m going to go on to the next one. Of course, I’m going to wash your feet.” But Jesus didn’t say that, He said, “You do not understand now what I’m doing, but later, you will understand.”
They did not understand the symbolic actions, but above all, they did not understand His death. They didn’t; they weren’t ready for it. They could not comprehend why He needed to die. Consistently, this was hidden from them. In Luke Chapter 9, verse 44 and following, it says, “Jesus said to them, ‘Listen carefully to what I’m about to tell you. The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men.’” But they did not understand what this meant. It was hidden from them, so that they did not grasp it and they were afraid to ask him about it.” The same thing happened again in Luke 18 when He warned them that He was going to be betrayed to the chief priests and teachers of the law, that they were going to scourge him and hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and it says again in Luke 18, “They did not understand this.” Even in John 16, where Jesus is working so intimately with them, teaching them, preparing them for all of the things that they’re going to face, He says, “In a little while, you will not see me. And then after a little while, you will see me.” And they said, “We don’t know what he’s talking about, a little while we won’t. And then after a little while we will. We don’t understand it, it’s hidden from us; we don’t get what he’s saying.” They didn’t understand his death. The very central reason why He came and took on a body they didn’t understand, and neither did they understand his resurrection. When John and Peter were at the tomb, and they were looking at the physical evidence of the resurrection, they saw and believed it said, but they still did not understand from Scripture that he had to rise from the dead. So, Jesus, in Matthew 13, says, “Have you understood all these things?” “Oh yes Lord, yes.”
We also are so confident in our knowledge of the Word of God, aren’t we? We’re so confident that we’ve got it all figured out, our theology is all arranged. We understand Matthew; we understand the whole Bible. Really? Could it be that God has more things to teach us? Could it be that our understanding needs to be infinitely deeper than it is? He wants them to have a comprehensive understanding, and when the Holy Spirit came, He guided them into all truth. He finished their discipleship. He enabled them as apostles to write the New Testament, to write down the new treasures. So, they became, along with the Old Testament prophets, the foundation for the church. In Ephesians 2, “Built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.” Yes, at the end of their training, they understood. Now in Heaven, they understand perfectly, but at the time, they did not have full understanding. So, Christ’s goal here is not just that they have clear understanding, but that they would have a comprehensive understanding, and that’s a lifetime journey, isn’t it? A lifetime journey of leadership by the power of the Holy Spirit, until you really do understand the Word of God.
The Disciples’ Delight in the Scripture
But thirdly, He didn’t just want them to understand. Oh no, that’s not enough. He wants them to be delighted in these treasures. He wants the Word of God to inflame their hearts. Not a cold knowledge and ability to pass a theology exam, that’s not enough. It has to be knowledge on fire; it has to be a delight in the Word of God, and so He uses the treasure analogy. That they would have rich delight in the Word. Look at verse 52, He said to them, “Therefore every teacher of the law who’s been instructed about the Kingdom of Heaven, is like the owner of a house, who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old.” This is the image is of a wealthy landowner, homeowner, who has got a treasure chest or perhaps a treasure room. He can send some servants down and bring some things up and dazzle the eyes of his guests with some old things that he’s had for a long time, maybe passed down from generation and generation, and some new treasures that he’s just acquired. He’s going to show them now what he’s got. He’s talking clearly not about physical treasures but treasures of truth, treasures of the Word of God. Every teacher of the law who’s become a full disciple and been instructed about the Kingdom of Heaven can bring out these kinds of treasures. They’re not physical treasures. They are treasures of Scripture. Without instruction about the Kingdom, the Old Testament is dark and mysterious. It really doesn’t make much sense, but the instruction about the Kingdom of Heaven brings these dark things out into full light, so we can understand them.
The Old Testament then becomes a sure and unmovable foundation for the Kingdom of Heaven. We start to understand the old treasures, namely the Old Covenant. The well-instructed scribe, the teacher of the law, can bring out treasure after treasure. The Old Testament starts to make sense. Genesis 1, the creation in which the King makes the world; creates it with the breath of his mouth, and therefore has the right and authority to make laws and rules by which it’s to be governed. He gives a law to Adam that he should not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He has the right to do that, and He has the right also to sit in judgment over Adam to see what he will do. We also understand that man was created in the image of God but fell in the garden and sinned and became a wicked lawbreaker. He rebelled against the king, rebelled against his commands, and therefore stands under the judgment and the curse of God.
Then we understand the call of Abraham, the redemptive purpose of God as He called out Abraham and said, “Through him, all peoples on Earth will be blessed.” We start to see the preparation, the setting of the table for the feast that will be the Kingdom of Heaven. These things begin to make sense. The Holy of Holies in the tabernacle becomes a symbol of Christ’s actual body. The new and living way where we can have face-to-face fellowship with God in the New Covenant. Everything starts to make sense; the blood sacrifice, the animal sacrifice, a preparation for the bloody sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Substitution being established. The sacrifice died, and we didn’t. The transfer of guilt onto the head of the lamb, and the guilty one goes free. We understand these things, and frankly, I think that the animal sacrificial system makes no sense apart from the cross of Calvary. Why would God do that? But then with the old treasure combined with the new, all of a sudden everything starts to make sense. We start to see the whole picture, the ceremonial laws of Moses, the law of circumcision; physical circumcision in the Old Testament, a spiritual circumcision in the New, where our hearts are circumcised and prepared to accept Christ. The three feasts of Moses: The Passover, and the First Fruits, and the Final Fruits. Two of them fulfilled, one of them yet to be fulfilled. Jesus is our Passover lamb; His blood was shed so that the angel of destruction death might pass over us, and we might not receive the wrath we deserve. Pentecost, the First Fruits, the first harvest being brought into the storehouse as people, 3,000 of them, believe in Christ and are brought in. Is the final harvest done yet? No. Therefore we’re waiting for the Feast of Trumpets, that final harvest, when all of the things are brought in and we can celebrate the Final Fruits.
The Kingdom of Heaven explains the Old Testament, the old treasures. The moral laws of Moses, “You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, shall not steal, and all the other commandments like that, now written on our hearts by the Holy Spirit, a fiery finger of the Holy Spirit, so that we know how to live. The law of God now written inside us, not on tablets of stone external to us, but actually written on our hearts and our minds by the power of the Spirit. The Psalms become the prayers of children of God. Endued with energy and strength by the Holy Spirit, we can pray the Psalms back to our Heavenly Father. I would say that every emotional state you could find in your life, you’re going to find somewhere in the Psalms. They become your prayer language. Proverbs, a wise way, a practical way of living every day, walking in the footsteps of Jesus who is wisdom incarnate. The Word of God comes alive. Old treasures become what they really are, treasures. The mysteries of Daniel’s prophecies, of this rock cut out but not by human hands, destroying all of these kingdoms in itself becoming a Kingdom that takes over the whole world; all of a sudden that makes sense. We see these old treasures in the light of the new.
Christ’s fourth goal is that the disciples would have a fruitful teaching ministry themselves, so He uses this idea of scribes or teachers of the law using every teacher of the law who has become a disciple of the Kingdom. In Jesus’s day, the scribes spent their whole-time copying Scripture. They didn’t have the kind of word processors, or printing press, or any of the things that we have today. For anyone to have a Scripture, it had to be hand-copied. The scribes were the copyists. The first scribes, according to the book of Moses, were kings. In Deuteronomy 17:18, the Law of Moses says, “Now it shall come about when he, the king, sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself a copy of this law on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priest.” So, the king actually took pen in hand and would copy the law himself; probably later on the kings didn’t do this but hired people to do it for them. But I think it’s so sweet that the kings themselves were supposed to make their own copies. They were the first scribes. Joshua was a scribe; he took on a scroll and wrote the whole law of Moses out [Joshua 8:32]. In the presence of the Levites, the Israelites, he wrote the Law of Moses. Then came a whole group of scribes who spent their whole time writing and copying the Word of God. Second Chronicles 34:13 says some of the Levites were scribes. Ezra was a Godly scribe, who separated himself out that he might understand the Word and instruct it. He’s described in the book of Ezra 7:10. “Ezra had devoted himself to the study and observance of the Law of the Lord and to teaching its decrees and laws in Israel.” In Nehemiah 8, “He gathers all of the remnant that’s come back from the exile and they stand there all day, and he instructs them from the Word.” What a delightful time as Ezra, the godly scribe, teacher of law, is teaching them.
The problem was in Jesus’s day, most of them were not godly, but were his bitterest enemies, who fought against Him and who could not accept the new treasures, the new wine as it were, of the Kingdom of Heaven. They fought against it through traditionalism. They were not instructed about the Kingdom of Heaven; therefore, they could not accept the new treasures, only the old, and the old treasures become worthless without the new. You can’t understand them; they have no value. So, Jesus says, “I’m looking for a new generation of scribes, of teachers of the law who will accept both old treasures and new.” Fully instructed about the Kingdom of Heaven, He doesn’t want the disciples merely to have a clear understanding, or a comprehensive understanding of the Kingdom, and He doesn’t just want them to delight in it themselves; he wants them to be teachers of it. This is the essence of the teaching ministry of the apostles. They were not simply to hoard these things in, but they were to bring out of their storeroom and show these new treasures and old to everyone. Jesus says, “All authority in Heaven and Earth has been given to me, therefore go and make learners; make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded.” Bring out these treasures; show them the old treasures and the new, a new generation of Spirit-filled scribes, teaches of the Law, who understand the Kingdom of Heaven, and who also understand the value of the Old Covenant.
Application: Expository Preaching
expository preaching
What kind of applications would Christ give us from these things? First, I’m going to establish or pronounce before you that the best kind of preaching is expository preaching. It’s a bringing out, that’s what “exposition” means. You’re bringing up out of the text and showing the treasures that are in the text. Grievously many evangelical churches will settle for far less than those treasures. They will settle for the preacher’s best jokes and stories. I have some good jokes actually. But I don’t think that this is the place for that, I really don’t. I mean, I can entertain you, but you’ll go home the same as when you came in. The Word of God has transforming power. If we bring out these treasures and show them for what they are, treasures, true treasures, old and new, you’ll be transformed by the renewing of your mind. You will gain a clear and comprehensive understanding of the Kingdom of Heaven, and you’ll never be the same again. So, I’m advocating expository preaching. Somebody put it this way, and I think this is so delightful. The role of the preacher is similar to that which is done for pearls. We talked a little while I go about the pearl of great price and how valuable they were. Back in the old days, they didn’t culture them, but you had to dive down to the bottom of the bay to bring up these oysters and maybe only one out of 100 would have any pearl at all in it. But they’d go down, they would dive down and bring up these oysters, open them up, and there would be the pearl. But it’s just a loose pearl, needs to be cleaned up. It’s not jewelry yet; it’s got to be brought to a jeweler who then knows how to put it together in a strand perhaps, or set it in a setting, so it becomes a beautiful brooch. Therefore, I think a good preacher is going to both do the diving down of exposition to bring up truths. You’ve got Greek and Hebrew and logic and grammar and systematic theology and all of these things. But that’s not a sermon yet, is it? It’s raw material for a message, but it’s not an actual message. It’s got to be set into something beautiful so it’s attractive and winsome and appealing. That’s the work of a jeweler. So, there’s a proclamation of the beautiful truths of the Word of God. Never settle for anything less than that, whatever church you’re in. That you would have this kind of exposition so that the treasures really are treasures, the treasures of the Word of God and not of some human opinion or running commentary on politics or other things like that. You don’t need that; you need the Word of God, and you need the Kingdom of Heaven to be explained. Psalm 119:130 says, “The unfolding of the opening of your words gives great light; it gives understanding to the simple.” My job is to unfold the Word for you. All godly teachers should do the same.
biblical theology
Secondly, biblical theology. What do I mean by biblical theology? Well, that’s a technical term for people. I don’t just mean theology that’s biblical. I mean that, but I mean more than that. Systematic theology is an organization of all of what the Bible says topically; all of what it says about God, about the Trinity, about Christ as redeemer. It’s about atonement, redemption, prayer, angels, and the final judgment, topically. We’ve been going through a systematic theology course, not in the summer, but that’s what we were doing before. That’s beneficial, but that’s not what I’m talking about. Biblical theology sees the entire picture of the Bible, the single story that the 66 books are telling and teaching; kind of like a tapestry, if you would. There’s the Bayeux Tapestry, which talks about the Battle of Hastings 1066, and it’s 230 feet long and about 20 inches wide, and there’s all these little scenes taken from that significant battle. And it’s just rolled out, and you can look. And by looking at the whole thing, you get the whole story of the Battle of Hastings. Systematic theology would take all of the green strands from the tapestry and put them in one place, all the red strands in another, all the blue strands in another, etcetera. But biblical theology takes and sees the whole picture, the whole tapestry, for all the story that it’s telling.
And what story is it telling? It’s telling the story of a holy and righteous God, a king who has the right to make laws and has the right to enforce them and judge them, and whose judgment on the breaking of his laws is death, and who has spoken a death penalty over the sinful human race but has paid the death penalty through His son, Jesus Christ. Through simple faith in Christ, your death penalty can be paid. That’s the story. Biblical theology. The whole big picture. Are you saved? Has your death penalty been paid? Do you have the treasure of eternal life today? If you’re not sure whether you have eternal life, whether you’ve ever trusted in Christ, you must not leave this building without being sure. Talk to me, talk to some others who know the Lord and say, “I want to be saved. I want my sins forgiven through faith in Christ. My soul is worth more than the entire world. Jesus said so. “What would it profit you to gain the whole world and forfeit your soul?” But the big picture of biblical theology is the story of redemption. The history of redemption.
give the whole counsel of good’s word
Thirdly, give the whole counsel of God’s Word, old treasures and new, all of them. Everything that God says to us is a treasure. There’s no trash in the Bible. Even though doctrine, some of them may be controversial and difficult to hear, I think sometimes those are the ones we need to hear the most, because that’s where we’re farthest from God’s way of thinking. have come to delight in all of the Word of God and to embrace it, no matter what the cost. We should embrace the whole counsel of God as a treasure. I don’t want anything that God doesn’t want to give me. Do you? I want all that He does want to give me. There’s a correction that comes. Paul says, “I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole counsel of God.”
Biblical evangelism
Fourth, there is biblical evangelism, that you would share… Could you share Christ just from the old treasures? The apostles did. Could you just share Christ from the Old Testament? Could you do Psalm 22? Could you do the Son of Man vision in Daniel 7? Could you see the value and richness of the old treasure because the old treasure is Christ, just as the new treasure is? I had a plane flight back from China one time with a lady who was born in Israel, served in the Israeli army and had a rabbi who was her best friend. She was Jewish, and we had about eight hours together, much to her dismay, I guess. But we had a good time talking. She had never looked at the Son of Man vision in Daniel 7. She said she’s going to ask her rabbi this week. That was two years ago, I don’t know if she did. Who is the Son of Man? To be able to proclaim the Gospel from all of Scripture is biblical evangelism. Share the light. Do you delight in the Word of God, is it your treasure? Are you eager to learn more about the Bible? Are you hungry and thirsty for it? To have no interest in the Scripture is a great mark that you are probably not born again, but God puts within us a hunger and thirst to know his mind, to understand his word. Are you hungry and thirsty? Do you have a delight in the Word of God? And finally, do you demonstrate that delight by a very practical thing called a daily quiet time? Do you get up early in the morning and open the Bible and study it, or perhaps late in the evening, or some time? Do you have a set apart time in which you are taking in the Word of God as your body takes in physical food, feasting on the word, meditating on it, taking it in? Fathers, are you gathering your families around the family altar that you might open the Word of God and show them by your example, how much you treasure the Word? Is this something that you’re doing? I pray that you would. Christ has set before us, not just in this one text but in all the Bible, in 66 books, old treasures as well as new. Sometimes I think of this text in terms of old treasures, of things I’ve already learned and they’re still treasures, but there’s still a lot of new ones I haven’t discovered yet. I’m urging you to go on a voyage of discovery through the Scripture and find the treasures he has for you.
