October 24th, 2023
This week, I’ve been thinking about the power of hidden treasure. Jesus compared the kingdom of heaven to treasure hidden in a field and a pearl of great price (Matthew 13:44-45). Paul talks about the “mystery” of Christ more than once in his leaders to the churches. Colossians 1:25-27 says,
“I (Paul) became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
Have you ever thought about why the mystery was hidden for ages and is now revealed?
Jesus was the revelation of the Father that had been promised for generations, but He wasn’t revealed the way anyone expected.
God could have sent Jesus as a grown man with an army of angels.
Even now, the Father could just demonstrate His power for the whole world to see and make Himself known to everyone all at once.
However, Proverbs 25:2 says,
“It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out.”
But why? Why does God conceal things He actually wants to be known?
To answer that, I want to look at a couple of the parables of Jesus. Luke 8:4-11 says,
‘When a great crowd was gathering and people from town after town came to Him, Jesus said in
a parable,
“A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell along the path and was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the air devoured it. And some fell on the rock, and as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up with it and choked it. And some fell into good soil and grew and yielded a hundredfold.”
As He said these things, He called out, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” When His disciples asked him what this parable meant, He said, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God, but for others they are in parables, so that ‘seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.’ Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God...”
This is a well-known parable we often relegate to Sunday school, but there is so much power in it. Have you ever considered how crazy this story would have sounded to Jesus’ listeners?
Think about it. Does a farmer just go out throwing his seed everywhere? Of course not. A farmer has a specific field for planning their crops. They spend time clearing the space and preparing the soil. They carefully plant the seeds, watering the plants and tending them as they grow. Finally, they reap a harvest.
How would this parable of the sower have sounded to an agricultural society? So, there’s a farmer who takes good seeds that cost money and he ... throws them on rocks? He tosses them on the road to get trampled? He plants them with thorn bushes?
What is he thinking?
Jesus is either painting a picture of a very foolish farmer OR a farmer who has a great deal of confidence in the power of his seeds.
Jesus explained after He told the story that the seed is the word of God.
Now we know that Jesus is the Word of God made flesh and He was a seed. Jesus said of Himself in John 12:24:
“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”
Why did the Father send Jesus, as a seed, to a place in the middle of nowhere to live for only 33 years, ministering in a radius of less than 100 miles? Wouldn’t the harvest have been bigger if God had planted Him more carefully?
Couldn’t Jesus have reached more people if He’d been born royal or powerful? God could have given Him enough earthly influence to reign on the earth when He came. Why did He come as a carpenter at a time when information spread only by word of mouth? There were no videos to record what Jesus said and did. The truth of His life was meticulously preserved on scrolls and copied again and again. Wouldn’t it have been easier if Jesus had been born when the news could have spread faster? Wasn’t the Father concerned the truth of His Son would be lost in time?
Obviously, He wasn’t, but why?
The Father knew the power of the seed.
In Luke 13:18-20 Jesus said,
“What is the kingdom of God like? And to what shall I compare it? It is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his garden, and it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches.”
The farmer in the parable of the sower had confidence that the seed he threw had the power to take root wherever it landed.
The Father knew that His son, though a small seed, planted in an obscure time and place in history, would change the world in just 3 years of ministry. He could see the harvest when it was yet a seed. The gospel of Jesus Christ would spread like wildfire. Just a few years after Jesus went back to heaven, it was said that His disciples “turned the world upside down” (Acts 17:6).
Romans 1:16 says,
“I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who
believes...”
Why does the Father hide the treasure in the field? Because He understands the power of what He’s hidden. He knows there will be those that find it and sell everything for the field.
If Jesus came with a show of force, would it require faith to believe Him? The Father hides things, not to keep us from them, but to teach us to seek.
Too often, we act like professional soil checkers before we sow our seed. We judge and evaluate whether or not we think someone will receive the word of God before we share the gospel. The Father didn’t do that when He sowed His Son 2,000 years ago in a tiny country under Roman Occupation. He knew the power of the seed.
If someone had judged my heart before sharing the gospel with me, I would have never gotten saved. My heart would surely have looked like a foolish place to sow. The seed of the word of God will take root where you least expect, and it will change the nature of the soil!
Our job is to lift Jesus up and declare His Word. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation, and we can trust the seed to do what it does when we sow it! It’s the mystery of Christ. It’s the folly of the cross. It’s the beauty of the pearl and the treasure in the field. When we sow the seed, we will reap a harvest, not because we’re great farmers, but because we sow the most powerful seed that’s ever existed. It’s the Word of God!
“I (Paul) became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
Have you ever thought about why the mystery was hidden for ages and is now revealed?
Jesus was the revelation of the Father that had been promised for generations, but He wasn’t revealed the way anyone expected.
God could have sent Jesus as a grown man with an army of angels.
Even now, the Father could just demonstrate His power for the whole world to see and make Himself known to everyone all at once.
However, Proverbs 25:2 says,
“It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out.”
But why? Why does God conceal things He actually wants to be known?
To answer that, I want to look at a couple of the parables of Jesus. Luke 8:4-11 says,
‘When a great crowd was gathering and people from town after town came to Him, Jesus said in
a parable,
“A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell along the path and was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the air devoured it. And some fell on the rock, and as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up with it and choked it. And some fell into good soil and grew and yielded a hundredfold.”
As He said these things, He called out, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” When His disciples asked him what this parable meant, He said, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God, but for others they are in parables, so that ‘seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.’ Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God...”
This is a well-known parable we often relegate to Sunday school, but there is so much power in it. Have you ever considered how crazy this story would have sounded to Jesus’ listeners?
Think about it. Does a farmer just go out throwing his seed everywhere? Of course not. A farmer has a specific field for planning their crops. They spend time clearing the space and preparing the soil. They carefully plant the seeds, watering the plants and tending them as they grow. Finally, they reap a harvest.
How would this parable of the sower have sounded to an agricultural society? So, there’s a farmer who takes good seeds that cost money and he ... throws them on rocks? He tosses them on the road to get trampled? He plants them with thorn bushes?
What is he thinking?
Jesus is either painting a picture of a very foolish farmer OR a farmer who has a great deal of confidence in the power of his seeds.
Jesus explained after He told the story that the seed is the word of God.
Now we know that Jesus is the Word of God made flesh and He was a seed. Jesus said of Himself in John 12:24:
“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”
Why did the Father send Jesus, as a seed, to a place in the middle of nowhere to live for only 33 years, ministering in a radius of less than 100 miles? Wouldn’t the harvest have been bigger if God had planted Him more carefully?
Couldn’t Jesus have reached more people if He’d been born royal or powerful? God could have given Him enough earthly influence to reign on the earth when He came. Why did He come as a carpenter at a time when information spread only by word of mouth? There were no videos to record what Jesus said and did. The truth of His life was meticulously preserved on scrolls and copied again and again. Wouldn’t it have been easier if Jesus had been born when the news could have spread faster? Wasn’t the Father concerned the truth of His Son would be lost in time?
Obviously, He wasn’t, but why?
The Father knew the power of the seed.
In Luke 13:18-20 Jesus said,
“What is the kingdom of God like? And to what shall I compare it? It is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his garden, and it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches.”
The farmer in the parable of the sower had confidence that the seed he threw had the power to take root wherever it landed.
The Father knew that His son, though a small seed, planted in an obscure time and place in history, would change the world in just 3 years of ministry. He could see the harvest when it was yet a seed. The gospel of Jesus Christ would spread like wildfire. Just a few years after Jesus went back to heaven, it was said that His disciples “turned the world upside down” (Acts 17:6).
Romans 1:16 says,
“I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who
believes...”
Why does the Father hide the treasure in the field? Because He understands the power of what He’s hidden. He knows there will be those that find it and sell everything for the field.
If Jesus came with a show of force, would it require faith to believe Him? The Father hides things, not to keep us from them, but to teach us to seek.
Too often, we act like professional soil checkers before we sow our seed. We judge and evaluate whether or not we think someone will receive the word of God before we share the gospel. The Father didn’t do that when He sowed His Son 2,000 years ago in a tiny country under Roman Occupation. He knew the power of the seed.
If someone had judged my heart before sharing the gospel with me, I would have never gotten saved. My heart would surely have looked like a foolish place to sow. The seed of the word of God will take root where you least expect, and it will change the nature of the soil!
Our job is to lift Jesus up and declare His Word. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation, and we can trust the seed to do what it does when we sow it! It’s the mystery of Christ. It’s the folly of the cross. It’s the beauty of the pearl and the treasure in the field. When we sow the seed, we will reap a harvest, not because we’re great farmers, but because we sow the most powerful seed that’s ever existed. It’s the Word of God!
1 Comment
A most powerful message.
The Lord Almighty has surely gifted you.