Episode Transcript
[00:00:04] Speaker A: If you've got your Bibles with you, why don't we turn to.
Or scroll to Matthew 13.
And I'm just going to be reading two verses 45 and 46, Matthew 13, chapter 13, verses 45 to 46, title of my message today. I was praying earlier in the week and I was saying, lord, what do you want to speak to your people? And I just felt him put just such a weight on my heart for the extravagant love of the Father.
So that's what we're going to look at today, the extravagant love of the Father and the radical victory of Jesus. So Matthew 13:45-46, and this is Jesus words of Jesus telling us another parable again. The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for pearls, for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.
Let's just bow our heads and we'll pray and then we'll get into things. Father, I thank you that you've given us your word.
I pray, Lord, that these would not be my words, Lord, but you would speak to your people. You would move upon our hearts by the working of your Holy Spirit.
And so we just set aside every distraction, Lord, today, and we just open up our hearts to receive the seed of your word today. And I pray that you'd bless it and let it be fruitful in Jesus name. Amen.
Amen.
So that's my anchor scripture.
[00:01:52] Speaker B: And
[00:01:54] Speaker A: you know, just a verse before that. Jesus talks about, you know, the guy that finds the treasure in the field, and he hides it and sells everything he has and goes and buys the field. And scholars all agree that this is what the kingdom of heaven is like. When we find the thing that we're looking for, when we find Jesus, we will give it all up in pursuit of him.
But I want us to flip this today 45 and 46. I want us to look at it slightly differently. Let's come as children and let's just open our minds up to this. I want to put to you today that the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant is like a merchant looking for pearls.
And I want us to imagine ourselves as the pearl of great price.
And so I'm going to move on from there. So I want to take us right back to the garden today.
So right back into Genesis 1:26. If you want to follow through, you don't have to turn to every verse and chapter and verse that I say.
So God's created everything. God creates everything. He says it's good. Yeah. He blesses it.
And we get to verse 26 and God says to the Trinity turns around Holy Spirit and the Son who we know was there at the start, in the beginning was the Word and the Word with God. And Word was God. So Jesus, Father and the Holy Spirit, let us make man in our image according to our likeness, according to our likeness. So God created us with, he reproduced after himself. He created us with personality, with his character, with capacity to worship.
And he created us to manifest his authority.
And so when we look at ourselves today, I want us to view ourselves through this lens of God, God's perfect creation. We were created with divine intrinsic worth.
You are worth everything today as we've been singing about it, that God left his throne. You're worth that. You were created with intrinsic worth and divine destiny.
We were created as triune beings.
This is language that actually I've rubbing shoulders with Paul.
Triune beings, we have a spirit with a soul inside a body. So God created us with those elements. And we've been set apart for covenant relationship with Him.
God created us with freedom and awareness to respond and to reflect God. And when we look at all the things he created and all the beasts and all the crawling things and creatures and birds of the air, we're the only creature that God created with those attributes, with a freedom and awareness to respond and to reflect God. And God created us with choice, right? We call this free will, choice, the ability to make decisions.
And God said, have dominion over the earth. So there's this delegated authority that God has given us.
We're commissioned to rule on God's behalf. And this self rule is all inclusive. It's over our spiritual state, our moral state. You know, we have the ability to make decisions which will lead us into moral fruitfulness or will corrupt us, our social and relational and physical being.
We've been given authority over that and charge over that and the ability to make choices, right?
And so we see at the end of Genesis chapter one that we, we as human beings, these divinely created beings, we have power, we have choice. We have the ability for partnership with God. I think that's what God is looking, what God was looking for in the garden. Will you partner with me and will you trust me?
And so we find freedom by trusting in his sovereign knowledge of good and evil.
Let's picture ourselves as Adam, which means man, Adam and Eve.
We can trust in this sovereignty or we can seize power and define good and evil by our own standards. And if anyone has read past Genesis, we know what happens Sin and rebellion comes in. That's a dirty word, isn't it? Sin.
I've said this before. I like to package up sin as missing out on God's best.
God has a blueprint for creation. And when we sin and when we rebel, his perfect blueprint of how we're meant to live and how we're meant to thrive and be fruitful, we miss out on that, but we also miss the mark. We miss the mark, the stone standard of purity and holiness.
And so actually. And we don't have time to go into today, definitely don't have time. Maybe next time. But rebellion would actually introduced into creation way before humans chose to rebel. We know from the Bible that Satan was created as an angel, as a cherubim. And he was so prideful that he tried to exalt himself above God, said, I will exalt myself above the most High, above the stars. And he was thrown out of heaven. And so he became corrupted. And that corruption turned into malice and evil and darkness and downward spiral. And he took third of the angels with him. And so we see that in Genesis 2, God creates this garden and, and puts Adam and Eve in it. And he says, I've created all the trees for you to enjoy, fruit that is good to eat.
But in particular, there's two trees that the Word points out. There's a tree of life and there's a tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
So there's. I. It doesn't number them, but I expect there's millions of species of trees that Adam and Eve can choose from and enjoy and, you know. Yeah, just savor on. But there's these two trees.
So God's using these two physical things to show us that there's a spiritual transaction here. So the tree of life leads to immortality. It's life, it's everything good.
So they could have chosen that. And there's a tree of knowledge of good, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And God says in chapter two, if you eat of this tree, so every tree of the garden you may freely eat. But if you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you will surely die.
So Adam and Eve make a choice and they get tempted by the devil, as we know, and they choose to eat of that tree.
And that leads to. That's rebellion, that's sin. Everything changes. Everything changes at that moment.
Dominion that we had, the authority, that we had, the partnership with God is broken. That covenant that God wanted with us is now broken. And we're severed from the source, the lifespring.
We've given up, given over partnership. And we actually see Adam and Eve making partnership with Satan.
So the impact of this rebellion over humanity and the generations to come is that we're still separated from God. God kicks Adam and Eve out of the garden, out of his presence.
We're corrupted. So we're living apart from God's original blueprint and his design for life. And we corrupt our soul and our moral being. And this leads to fractured relationships, you know, violence, violent power grabs, whole civilizations given over to refining, redefining evil as good and ultimately leads to death.
Genesis 2:17, you will surely die. Romans 6:23. The wages of sin is death. And so again, if you know any Old Testament history, the cycle just repeats and repeats and repeats and repeats and the reign of evil is ushered in and God allows Satan to have dominion in this now cursed earth.
But right early on we see that God is so kind and compassionate and even though we have severed that covenant with him, even though we've chosen to partner with his adversary, the devil, he even says, I'm going to get them back, I'm going to get my bride back one day, I'm going to win them back.
And we even see God pointing to this by making the first ever blood sacrifice. Innocent animals were sacrificed to cover Adam and Eve. We talk about being covered by the blood, but that was a foreshadow of what's to come in Genesis 3.
So Hebrews 9:22, without shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins, there's no forgiveness. This is part of God's blessing blueprint that a sacrifice has to be made.
We've blown it with God and now God starts to enact a plan, this salvation plan. And so he makes covenant with Abraham and sets in motion this plan to that plan that unfolds to actually bless all people and to bring salvation to humanity.
But the cycle of rebellion continues. As we heard last week and as we've heard in lots of teaching and rediscovered church, the Israelites come on like 460 years, 430 years later, God gives the law.
And the Israelites go in cycles of turning towards God and asking for forgiveness. And then they sin again, turn towards God, turn away, turn towards God, turn away. And the cycles and evil just floods, floods the earth. And so we see destruction and violence and rebellion, corruption and death. 2000 years, God's chosen people to bless all peoples through the earth. They're just messing up and it's horrific. It's horrific. There's Like, I know there might be.
Hopefully there's no children in the room, but I won't say it. You know, if you've read your Bible, it's horrendous. It's sacrifice of little ones, putting them through the fire, incest, rape, all that sort of stuff. And so God is still this righteous judge.
And I want us to think about the holiness of God, and he wants to win his bride back. And so God, after 2,000 years, starts to unfold this plan. I just want us to turn to.
Galatians 4, because I was studying this and I'm thinking, why did you wait so long to send Jesus? You know, you flooded the earth. Why can't. That was a good time to send Jesus.
And maybe we're not meant to understand it, but Galatians 4:4 says, but when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive adoption as sons. So I can only deduce from that that time was not yet full, because God said, in the fullness of time, he sent his son. And we had to wait this long.
And there are mysteries of God. I look at how small my brain is right now and how big and vast God is, and we can't fully understand and know why. But we're here now. So God sends Jesus, and the Messiah arrives on the scene. And God's been silent for hundreds of years. He's spoken through his prophets, tried to call Israel back from their sin and rebellion. And so the Messiah arrives, the hamashiach, that name Jesus actually, in Hebrew, I love this.
They wouldn't have said Jesus. They would have said Yahushua. Or it gets shortened to Yeshua, which means Yah, Yahweh, Hoshua.
Salvation is from Yahweh. That's Jesus name is literally Yahweh will bring salvation. Remember that word, Hosanna, where people say hosanna in the highest, which is a praise. It actually means save us.
So that roots of Hosanna is Yeshua.
So Yahushua, Yahweh will save. Yahweh will deliver. Yahweh will rescue. That's Jesus name. So Jesus arrives on the scene, but it's not like everyone's expecting. Yeah, he's born.
He leaves heaven's throne, and he's born into a stinking feeding trough, a manger.
He's born like we are all born out of our mothers. And I'm just, like, blown away by that.
How The God of all creation would humble himself into the smallest fragile form of a human being, be born into that stench, not even a home, but surrounded by animals and manure and noise.
And he lived a sinless life.
You know, he confronted the devil after all that stuff that we've been through as humanity. And he was tempted, but he didn't resist, he didn't yield.
And he taught us through this sinless life what God is like and what the kingdom is really like. It's this upside down kingdom. And so John 3:16 says that for God so loved the world that he sent his one and only son, pearl of great price.
What's your worth today?
What's your value? Do you remember that you have divine intrinsic value?
And so Romans 5:8 says that we see the life of Jesus whilst we were still in sin. Christ died for us.
He died.
We don't have time to go into all of that. But the God, man, this holy pure God in a body fully God, fully man, actually died for us. And that's where everything changes. Everything changes.
This old covenant that we've been under, everything changes. It's a new and living way, a new covenant that Jesus brings about, ordains for us.
And so we see the spotless lamb shed his blood.
Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins. And he's on the cross.
And in that moment, the heavens, the sky goes dark, the earth splits, the earth shakes, water and blood hit the ground.
And Jesus, this holy pure God man who is the weight of sin and all the shame and all the malice and all the evil and all the destruction and the violence and the rebellion is on his shoulders. And he goes down. And the Bible doesn't say what happens in three days, but he goes and he plunders.
[00:17:42] Speaker B: Hell and he plunders. And in his, I would imagine in his heart and in his mind, he's saying, I'm going to win them back. I'm going to win my bride back,
[00:17:51] Speaker A: that pearl of great price.
[00:17:53] Speaker B: I am going to do this to
[00:17:55] Speaker A: get them back, to bring them back into right standing with me.
And so Christ took on the sin and the shame and took on human form. Spurgeon puts it like this. We stand before God now as if we were Christ, as if we were pure and holy. Because Christ stood before God as us, as one of us.
But we know that he didn't stay in the grave. The story doesn't end there. There's always hope when Jesus is on the scene. Amen.
[00:18:29] Speaker B: Come on, let's get Excited about this. He didn't stay in the grave, because
[00:18:33] Speaker A: in three days he came up and
[00:18:35] Speaker B: the lion of Judah roared. Roared victory over death, over sin, over hell, all the powers.
Hell over sickness, over disease. And the lion of Judah roared out, victory, victory, victory. And because of the shed blood of Jesus, we are here this morning. If you're in Christ Jesus and you're united to him, you've been made alive. Amen. You were once dead. I'm alive.
I'm nothing special.
I'm just as broken as the next person just because I'm up here. And I have a privilege of bringing the Word. I spent half my adult life in sin and rebellion and walking away from God. And I had this relationship with God. And I knew I was doing things wrong.
[00:19:22] Speaker A: But Jesus came for you. And he came for me. And we're the pearl of great price.
[00:19:26] Speaker B: We're made alive. Ephesians 2:5. But that wasn't enough for God.
He forgave us. He forgave us of all iniquity. Ephesians 1:7. But God said, that's not enough. I'm going to forgive them. I'm going to cleanse them of all their sin. He says that you're not condemned today. Romans 8:11. You're justified in the eyes of God. You're healed. You're accepted. You have access.
Hebrews 10:19. Therefore, brothers and sisters, let us go boldly into the courts of the Most High, because we have access now. This access that we gave up in the garden, Jesus won back for us.
Amen. Come on, let's get excited about this. This morning, we're seated in heavenly places. We're anointed. We have eternal life. John 3:16. We're more than conquerors. Romans 3, Romans 8, 37. We're co heirs with Christ.
He's made us priests and kings unto Him. And so we. If you're in Christ Jesus today, God
[00:20:26] Speaker A: wants to say that you have total victory. You can live in victory. You can walk in victory.
[00:20:32] Speaker B: You can wake up every morning and
[00:20:35] Speaker A: not say, oh, I'm just a sinner, saying by grace.
[00:20:37] Speaker B: My personal conviction, if you want to know, I actually rebuke that phrase of
[00:20:41] Speaker A: my life because the Bible doesn't call me a sinner anymore.
[00:20:44] Speaker B: The Bible says, whilst I was still a sinner, Christ died for me. Paul doesn't write to the sinners in
[00:20:50] Speaker A: Ephesus or to the sinners in Galatia.
[00:20:51] Speaker B: He says to the saints, amen. So I'm a saint. I'm not a sinner anymore. My sin Nature is no longer. It's dead, it's in the grave. I do sin, I do rebel, I do turn away from God. But I'm not a sinner. That's not my identity. Because I'm united with the resurrected Christ. Yes.
And that's you as well. That's you and me. So I want to put to you this morning. These are the lengths that God went to. The extravagant love of the Father.
[00:21:21] Speaker A: And I do believe that Jesus is saying to us, you're the pearl of great price.
I believe that someone needed to hear that this morning. There's someone here today that doesn't think they have worth, that doesn't think they
[00:21:33] Speaker B: have value or they're living below the
[00:21:35] Speaker A: value of what God is calling them to. You're the pearl of great price this morning.
And so let's just bring this to land.
I believe that when we see Jesus rightly.
Come on, let's turn to the scriptures. I love this scripture. It's Philippians 2. Just quickly. Philippians 2, starting from verse 5. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation,
[00:22:14] Speaker B: taking the form of a bondservant and coming in the likeness of man, and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. And that therefore God has highly exalted him and given him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow of those in heaven and those in earth and those under the earth. That every tongue should confess that Jesus
[00:22:43] Speaker A: Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Wow. What a savior we have.
[00:22:48] Speaker B: What a savior. Yeah, you can clap. Come on. Somebody needs to stand up and give God praise this morning. What a Savior we have.
What a God we have that he would come back. This is the extravagant love of the Father.
[00:23:00] Speaker A: Come back and rescue us.
And not just that, not just rescuers. All the things that we've just talked about seated in heavenly places, co heirs with Christ, priests and kings.
But when we see Jesus rightly, when
[00:23:17] Speaker B: we see Jesus rightly, when we're actually
[00:23:19] Speaker A: turned towards him and we see this God man who now forever bears the scars of his sacrifice in heaven.
There's only one response.
There's only one response. That is worship. Not just this stuff on a Sunday, but worship. Living our lives in a posture of worship.
Worship and adoration.
[00:23:41] Speaker B: When we see Jesus rightly, we Find
[00:23:44] Speaker A: rest in the finished work of the cross.
[00:23:48] Speaker B: Come on. How many years did I spend trying to add to the finished work of the cross? All in futility because Jesus said in that moment, it is finished, it is done. I've defeated it. I've won back my bride.
And when we see Jesus rightly, we see ourselves rightly.
[00:24:09] Speaker A: You, me, with a pearl of great price.
We're the ones that he gave up everything, gave up his throne to redeem. That word. Redeem means to buy back, to purchase back.
And when we see Jesus rightly, the eyes of our heart, we will live in the radical victory of Jesus.
Radical victory of Jesus. And this is exciting that we get to pointing there. There's no picture there anymore, but it's exciting that we get to come back into the town and we get this is.
[00:24:45] Speaker B: This is. This has weight, this has significance.
We're carrying the presence of God in. Into a dark place.
The amount of mental health and torment
[00:24:55] Speaker A: that we see walking up and down
[00:24:56] Speaker B: the street like children as well, just under this curse.
[00:25:02] Speaker A: But Jesus has come to redeem, to save, to restore, and he's put his spirit in us. He didn't just give us clever tools, he put his very presence in us. And we get to carry that presence and we get to be a presence in our town, in our families, in our workplaces, in our schools, and bring hope.
[00:25:22] Speaker B: Because when Jesus is on the scene, when Jesus is in you and I and we're on the scene, there's always hope. Amen.
Amen.
[00:25:30] Speaker A: So, Drew, why don't you come up? We're gonna just have a time of
[00:25:33] Speaker B: reflecting on that
[00:25:36] Speaker A: word, that when we see Jesus rightly, let's just start to fix the gaze of our hearts. You might want to stand, you might want to kneel, you might want to carry on sat down.
Let's just look to Jesus this morning.
Let's look to Jesus this morning, the author and perfecter of our faith.
Let's look to Jesus, that joy that was set before him, the joy of knowing that his pride would be back.
Jesus, come on, you don't need me to lead you. Let's just respond to that. Wherever you're at today, maybe you had never heard that word before. Maybe you never knew the extravagant love of your Father, the Father of all creation, Pearl of great price.
It's you and I, this whole story, this whole book is about God's relationship with us.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.
Come on. Should we just worship? Let's just fix our eyes on Jesus.
Let's give him the praise this morning. The adoration, let it pour from within you.
Let's respond this morning and take that posture into our week ahead, that we can live in this radical victory. We can live as overcomers.
We can live with the lion of Judah roaring from inside of us.
It might be a situation, it might be a relationship, it might be this mountain that you're facing.
I want us to be bold this morning and look at that, whatever it is. It might be sickness in your body.
It might be this huge mountain.
Take that thing, let's just put it before the Lamb of God and see how big it is.
