The kingdom of heaven: What is it? What is it like? How do we get it? How do we keep it? — Matthew 13:44–52

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field. 

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it. 

“Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away. This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 

“Have you understood all these things?” Jesus asked. 

“Yes,” they replied. 

He said to them, “Therefore every teacher of the law who has become a disciple in the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old.” Matthew 13:44–52

The kingdom of heaven
1. What it is
2. What it is like
3. How we get it
4. How we keep it

Jennifer Roberts is a professor of art history at Harvard. She became somewhat famous recently for her assignments that she gives. When any of her students start an assignment, writing on some painting or painter or movement or whatever, the first thing she makes them do is go to the art museum and pick a pertinent painting and look at it for three hours. Three hours. I went to the Lourve and I think I was in and out of that entire thing in 90 minutes flat, but Professor Roberts says to really start to understand a painting or painter you have to slow down and really spend time looking at it.

In our worship series Beside Still Waters, we’re not going to spend three hours studying everything Jesus said and did beside the Sea of Galilee, though I encourage you to make the time to do so. But we are going to get a few brief looks at what exactly he was up to during this large chunk of his time on earth. And this week, we’re starting with his teaching.

The key to understanding Jesus’ teaching is understanding his main theme which he repeats over and over again: the kingdom of heaven, or the kingdom of God, has come near. That’s what Jesus went around saying. When we say Jesus went around preaching the good news, that’s what the good news was. The good news that the kingdom of heaven has come near.

And it makes sense why Jesus made that the theme of so many of his sermons: it’s intriguing because you can kind of tell what it means, that there’s a kingdom different from the world that we live in, but it’s also vague enough that you have to learn more. What is this kingdom like? What do people do in this kingdom? Can I get in? Do I want to get in? Is this some sort of transcendent kingdom, where only the highest ideals live; is it some sort of alien kingdom? What is it.

Because when people go to interpret what Jesus means by the kingdom of heaven, they’ve interpreted it in all sorts of ways. Some have said that the kingdom of heaven refers to heaven, the afterlife, and so it coming near means the end of the world is coming soon. Others have said that it refers to the kingdom of heaven being established on earth, that God is going to bring his rule down to our world and take it over through politics. Others have said that it’s more like a state of mind, that you should live in the kingdom of heaven so that you don’t get stressed out by things on earth.

The fascinating thing about this is that Jesus himself never once says, “The kingdom of heaven is ….” He never gives us the dictionary definition. He never distills the kingdom of heaven into a quick snappy sentence. Instead, he paints. He paints different vignettes which complement and deepen and explain each other, and he invites us to explore them so that we not only understand what the kingdom of heaven is in our minds, but it sinks into our hearts and our souls and becomes a part of who we are.

This morning, we have a reading before us that has not one, not two, not three, but four of Jesus’ paintings of the kingdom of heaven. Each of them are small, but each describe an aspect of the kingdom that you could spend the rest of your life looking at and appreciating. And that’s what Jesus wants us to do, to sit in this hallway and gaze at these paintings until they change us.

1. What is it?

This is a very profound way of communicating, isn’t it? To tell stories and paint pictures around the main point you want to get across, but never actually say the point itself so that your listeners discover the solution on your own. So that they sit in front of it and mull over it for hours until they internalize it. And it’s really very cool. But it’s also not a bad thing to get to the point, as we do in our fifty-minute church services, so that’s what we’ll do today. If you had to compress Jesus’ teachings on the kingdom of heaven into one phrase, if you went through the almost 100 times Jesus talks about it explicitly, it would be something like this: the kingdom of God is God’s ruling activity in human hearts through the gospel.

This is maybe the most important thing to understand about it, that it’s not static. It’s not like, alright here are the borders of the kingdom and they’ll be that way until we conquer some more territory. No, it’s God ruling, actively ruling and shaping and guiding and blessing and forgiving and empowering through his gospel message, that Jesus has reconciled us to God. So it is not like the kingdom of heaven is near because it’s just across the border, or the end of the world is coming, or you’re almost good enough at practicing the kingdom you almost are free from stress, no–it is near because God has come near to you in his Son Jesus. He rules in your heart.

2. What is it like?

Ok, now that we have a basic definition let’s look at the paintings before us. When Jesus taught about the kingdom of heaven, he would often say, “The kingdom of heaven is like…” and then he would tell an everyday story that people could relate to, that they could feel the emotions of. And so these first two stories really jump out, because they are not everyday things. It’s not everyday that you find buried treasure or reach the pinnacle acheivement of your career as a pearl merchant. So that should make us perk our ears up, what’s going on here?

The kingdom of heaven is like hidden treasure being found, and the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. These two parables are different: in the first, the person wasn’t exactly searching for buried treasure, in the second, the person was; it was his job. In the first, the treasure has to be purchased along with a field, in the second, it’s only the pearl. In the first, the person could presumably live off the treasure for the rest of his life, but in the second, he’s buying the pearl for the pearl’s sake. And if we had three hours to study these intricacies we could find many more and also understand even more deeply what Jesus means.

But the first thing that we notice is how similar these parables are. The kingdom of heaven is worth far more than anything else in your life combined and it’s not close. Having God rule with the gospel in your heart is worth more than every car you’ve ever owned, every job you’ve ever had, every relationship you’ve ever treasured, every moment that you love to reminisce about when you’re scrolling through your old photos. All of that, Jesus says, when you come across the kingdom of heaven, and you fully appreicate what it is, the proper and most truly human repsonse is that you should be ready to rid yourself of all of it that you might have God rule in your heart.

So: why don’t we? Why don’t we have that response, that elation, I mean Jesus says that the man who found the treasure hid it again and in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field. No offense to any art appreciators here, I know there are a few, but why does waking up early on Sunday mornings sometimes sound about as exciting as looking at a Picasso for three hours? Why do we feel more joy walking into our favorite band’s concert than we do to sing allelulia, praise the Lord, before we meet our God in his word? Why would we rather skip a Sunday than postpone a coffee shop with a visiting friend? Are we not thinking about it often enough or hard enough? Should we spend more time throughout our day reminding ourselves of this truth, should we beat ourselves up when we don’t and think, “I need to be more appreciative”?

3. How do we get it?

Maybe. Probably. We are prone to be distracted by other things that are not the kingdom of heaven, that are not God working in our heart, certainly. But the fact that the treasure is buried in a nondescript field, the fact that the pearl went unappreciated by so many, the fact that God’s Word, where God speaks into our hearts and moves his kingdom in our lives doesn’t seem all that life-changing is actually a feature, not a failure, of how God has decided that we get his kingdom.

How do we receive God’s kingdom? How do we become the people who find buried treasure? Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. Jesus does not say that the kingdom of heaven is like Ahab hunting the white whale. That’s an anachronism, but he’s not saying that the kingdom of heaven only comes to the most sought-after, the best, the most deserving people. He says it’s like a net that some fishermen cast out and don’t immediately care what it touches. All kinds—literally all spiecies—they caught. If God wanted, he could’ve made obtaining his kingdom the most selective thing in the world. He could’ve made it into a once-a-decade pilgrimage that you have to make, or into a deep and complex painting that you have to get a double major in theology and art history to decode. He could’ve put it behind a paywall, he could’ve given it an attendance requirement, he could’ve done all sorts of things to make the way we get his kingdom reflect how much it’s worth.

But instead he didn’t. Instead he casts his kingdom out into the world as carelessly as fishermen casted this net—which is to say, certainly there’s some strategy involved but the strategy is how can we get the most people to make contact with this net as possible. He casts his net by giving his Word to regular people. He gives his Word to regular people like me to read and teach from. He gives his Word to regular people like you who come to Bible study and share your thoughts on God’s Word with each other. No one is going to make a blockbuster based on Crossroads’ Sunday mornings or Wednesday evenings. But that’s the point. By bringing the excitement and the hype down to a regular level, God makes it clear that his kingdom available to everyone. God hides the preciousness, the amazingness, the life-changing power of his kingdom, knowing full well that this will result some sinful humans falling into apathy towards him from time to time, so that he can reach more people with his wider net. You don’t have to be a pearl expert to discover God’s kingdom. You don’t have to be a theologian to walk into McPherson and sit and hear how desparately much the God of the universe loves you and wants to rule in your heart.

4. How do we keep it?

So God has done all this by design. And we see Jesus unfold these aspects of the kingdom in the first three paintings of the kingdom. The kingdom of heaven, having God rule in your heart with his good news, is so incredibly valuable it should capture your imagination. Yet, God has dialed back the glory of how he delivers his kingdom, through his Word, so that he can bring it to more people.

Which puts us in an interesting position. Because we know in our minds the value of God’s kingdom, but we look at the decidedly normal worship space and we listen to a pretty inexperienced preacher and we taste bland-flavored bread and cheap wine and our hearts naturally turn away from God’s rule. We naturally are drawn to the other things in life that are more exciting and invigorating and moving. But we know that when we really appreciate God’s kingdom, we will have our priorities straight in life? In other words, how can we keep God’s kingdom?

Therefore every teacher of the law who has become a disciple in the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom treasures old and new. This parable is meant to wrap them all up. As Jesus taught the people in Galilee, the pictures of what the kingdom of heaven was grew clearer and more precise and sunk deeper into their hearts. And so he says that they are not only able to produce old treasures—truths that had been known and loved about God—but also new treasures—truths that Jesus had revealed to them about how God works in their hearts. In other words, it’s beneficial to know and understand how the world works in general, and we should never stop investigating and exploring and appreciating and enjoying the wonderful world God has given us, and the wonderful city with millions of different things to do on Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings.

Yet, we also have the new treasure, the painting that while we were still sinners, while we were prone to try to rule our own lives before we allowed God to rule in our hearts, Jesus died for us. We have the picture of love, of a man sacrificing his life so your life would be spared. We have a whole gallery of pictures of what the kingdom of heaven is like as God continues his ruling activity through in our hearts. God gives us the ability to add to that gallery as we live our lives selflessly for him.

But, friends, never take this gallery for granted. Just because it isn’t always exciting doesn’t mean it isn’t always life-changing. Because it is! Every time you come hear to hear old treasures and new treasures God, silently but certainly, works in your heart and prepares you to carry his kingdom to the world.