Parables No.6 The Pearl

To worship Him, we must worship Him in spirit and in truth. Let our praise to you be as incense. O great God this night, take from our hearts the gratitude that is your due.

And in the variety of moods that sweep over this congregation, do you minister your message to each one of us. Where correction is necessary, help us to make the adjustment. Where healing is longed for, stretch out your hand.

Here is beloved God. Amen. Please do sit down.

Let's read together from the Word of God. It's found in the Gospel of Matthew and the 13th chapter. We've been looking this past series of addresses into the teaching of our blessed Lord, when on occasions, and fairly frequently actually, He used parables, which we refer to as stories, heavenly stories with an earthly meaning.

Sometimes they're rather long, other times they're essentially very short. But it's not the volume of the language that's important, it's the truth that's contained within, which is of necessity for us to grasp. And this evening we look into the shortest parable, at least one of the shortest ones that our Lord narrated.

Let's go to the 45th verse of Matthew chapter 13. Again, says our Lord Jesus, 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.

I was reading just before I came in here from a quotation of what I take to be a Catholic writer, Father Andrew, and he had this to say, that if you were to take from this world anything that contributed to pain or a sense of loss, if everything nasty was dismissed and only nice things, so to speak, remained, then you would lose from our world a great deal. And he went on to make reference to the pearl and said that the pearl can only come into being as a result of suffering. Our Lord Jesus tells this particular parable, and as he does so, he is wanting to show you how to become a member of his kingdom, which is the most important thing for you to understand and act on.

Now, our Lord was nothing if he was not a controversialist. I mean by that that he wouldn't go the normal way of the preaching of the Pharisees of his day, simply because he believed that they were off course. And when it was necessary, he would use shock tactics to get the attention of the people.

And he does this essentially as he sets up this parable, because he's going to be talking about things actually that the Jewish community didn't normally involve themselves in at all. Now, you know that commercialism is a great gift of Jewish people down to this day. But Jesus said, look, the kingdom is like a man who is a merchant looking for fine pearls.

And immediately he's using shock tactics, because the Jews did not go in for fine pearls. Read the pages of the Old Testament, you'll find no reference to a pearl at all. Gold and silver in terms of metals, amethysts and various other precious stones, but never a pearl.

So Jesus immediately in his teaching highlights that which is bypassed as being precious amongst the audience that he's directing his words to. If it be the case that the merchant that he has in mind represents one who is working on behalf of God, again it's shock tactics. Do you know that the distinction between Christianity and Islam is fundamentally this? Allah does not come looking for people.

And do you know that Orthodox Judaism has this in common with Islamic theology? Yahweh does not come looking for people. So here is the Lord Jesus and he's setting up this parable, and it's essential that everyone understands, and this is his second shock tactic. He talks about a merchant who by logical deduction from the context of this story is an emissary of God, represents God, and he comes looking for people.

That would have surprised them in the theological seminary in Jerusalem. What is more, if your immediate conclusion in regard to what our Lord is talking of when he refers to the pearl is that he has in mind ordinary people, then once again it's shock tactics, because ordinary people were not recognized as having much intrinsic value. Jesus does use shock tactics, doesn't he, because he tells a longer story, perhaps one of the longest parables, in which the hero is someone who has no value as far as theological circles in Jesus' day are concerned.

I refer to the Samaritans. If it's true that the merchant is an extension of God and the pearls are ordinary folk, then somewhere down the line there has to be an exchange of finance which can only be assessed in terms of a sacrifice. We read that the merchant went away and sold everything, and actually fundamental to the whole concept of the word pearl is pain.

I don't know very much about gems. I've only once bought a gem in my life, and that was a diamond. It nearly bankrupted me, but it was the best investment that I ever made.

Is there anything in the New Testament that allows us to understand a little bit more as to why Jesus used these shock tactics? Is there anywhere in the New Testament where you find the concept underlined of somebody representing God coming looking? The answer is yes, of course. John 3.16, let's say it together, authorized version, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. God sent his Son.

Mark 10.45, the Son of Man came into the world to seek and to save what is lost. So you see this extraordinary concept being filled out, much to the astonishment not of every Jew, because a lot of the folk in the Lord Jesus' day, ordinary folk, would believe this of God. Our Lord's struggle was with the professionals, with the clergy that had got it wrong.

So when he says the concept of the merchant coming looking, then he's obviously thinking in terms of himself, and the merchants in those days, be they Jew or Gentile, were people who were constantly on the move. They had no fax machines. They'd go to Alexandria, they'd switch back to Rome, they'd go out to Mesopotamia, sometimes they'd go by ship, sometimes they would enlist some lift from the Bedouin known as the sailors of the deserts, and they would be transported around the world, and they would always be looking for that precious gem the like of which there was no other.

One of the most memorable experiences I had last year was listening to a man who had been for 17 years a mainline heroin addict. It was out in Hong Kong. He plundered the veins in his hands and in his legs, till there were no veins left, and so he used to plunge the needle right into his throat and twiddle it around and push the wretched stuff in.

17 years he'd been like that. He was addicted to this stuff until the Lord in his grace met him. I am told that there is a similar sort of addiction that people who are looking for precious gems, jewelers in the East, know, that they ransacked the whole of that area, endeavoring to find something that is utterly incomparable, something unique.

Is there anything to suggest in the rest of Scripture that Jesus our Lord might engage in a transaction exchanging a great amount in order to bring about the redemption and the forgiveness of ordinary people like ourselves? Well here's the Apostle Paul and he's preaching, it's in Acts chapter 20, no need to turn to it right now, but he's preaching to a Gentile community and he speaks of the death of Jesus and this is how he evaluates the shedding of the blood of Jesus. He said, who by his own blood has purchased the church? Purchased the church. In other words, when the Apostle looks at Calvary, he sees it at one level, only at one level, this isn't the heart, the whole of the story behind Calvary, there's the love of God, there's God moving towards men, but he sees it in terms of a payment being made for sins which have been committed.

I was having a problem this morning trying to chase out a text which was evading me in Romans. It talked about the zeal of the Jewish people, a zeal without knowledge, and I was comparing that with our Lord Jesus because it says of the Savior in John's Gospel in chapter 2, quoting the Psalms, speaking of Jesus's concern for his work, he said, the zeal of your house has consumed me. Now unpackage that statement.

And it's almost the language, I speak falteringly, hesitating to use it in case you misunderstand me, but it's almost the language of the addict. Jesus consumed to achieve the purpose for which he came onto the earth. What is that purpose? It is to redeem for himself something that he sees value in that many people see no intrinsic worth in whatsoever.

I was speaking to some folk at the FIBA conference up in High Lea a little while ago, and I was talking about the Lord Jesus's prayer for his own in the 17th chapter of John's Gospel. And two-thirds of the way through this prayer you find our Lord Jesus saying this, Father I want that those who you have given me be with me that they may behold my glory. Jesus doesn't normally use that sort of language.

He's not the I want sort of person. He's a man of deference. He submits to the will of the Father constantly.

He is doing what the Father wants. But when he thinks in terms of the eternal well-being of his own, he says I want, I want them to be in heaven. And the incredible thing is that a few hours elapse and you find Jesus having prayed that prayer in the garden of Gethsemane and in front of him is his hell.

The bloody perspiration on his forehead indicates the agony through which he's passing. And he knows what's just around the corner. And he says, Father if it be possible let this cup pass from me.

Nevertheless, not what I want but what you want. He is more concerned to achieve your heaven than to avert his hell. Father I want the security of those you have given me.

But in terms of the punishment, in terms of the agony of the cross, I'd like it to be passed over but Lord your will be done. You see the point? He's a man consumed. He's after a pearl.

A pearl of great price. A little grain of sand gets into the oyster, that's all, and it's attacked. It's one of the miracles of nature.

You'll probably find it well illustrated in Attenborough's programs on nature. And layer after layer of mother of pearl encases that grain of sand until out of the pain there is discovered for the person who's fortunate enough to pick it up, one of the great wonders of nature. The pearl with all its luster, with all its value.

Jesus is as the grain of sand, you understand, who slips into the oyster of this world and an attack is made upon him. His person is violated. They cut him off from the garden of Gethsemane.

They plunk him in front of Caiaphas and Annas, then to Pilate and then to Herod. They pluck the hair from his beard. They push their fists into his face.

They take the skin from off his back and they hang him in a way that no artist has ever dared to paint him naked on the cross. And Peter has the effrontery to say, no, the sensitivity to say of Jesus in the letter that Peter writes, to you who believe, he is the preciousness. That's 1 Peter 2 7. 1 Peter 1 7 says, of the blood of our Lord Jesus, that it is blood of such price, it's beyond silver and gold.

In other words, from Calvary itself, all the virtues that Jesus has, all the values that Jesus has, become somehow projected into the world in terms of the pearl of salvation, which is made available for people like you and me. And this is why our Savior tells this story. The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls.

Our Lord is prepared to go without anything. He's prepared to divest himself of everything in order to secure that one pearl of great value. And it underpins what I've often tried to teach from both Testaments, that in the sight of God, hear me, we're on a one-to-one, eyeball to eyeball now, not just the 400 or so people here, just you and me.

It underpins this, that you are so precious in God's eye. He allows the Lord Jesus to come into the world to spill his blood for you. This is the wonder of this great parable, you see.

Contained within it, for those who've got the time to unpackage it, is the heart of the Gospel. Jesus tosses the teaching into the cauldron of Jewish thought, and eventually it's seized on, and it emerges as the distilled wisdom that comes from heaven. This is not just Jesus acting on his own, this is Jesus an extension of the Godhead coming into the world to find those who have no basic value, but in contact with him as the grain is in contact with the oyster, value is generated.

To the extent that Jesus so looks upon you as an individual and all saved people taken together as so necessary for him that his heaven would not be heaven if you were not there. I want that where I am they may be, so that they may behold my glory. You wonder why after 20 years of in this pulpit, and even more as a preacher, I'm in love with Jesus Christ.

I can find no words beyond what I've used, and they're inadequate, to describe my indebtedness to the God-man who came looking for me, who intruded, so to speak, into this hostile world which was not looking for him, and in the injury that was inflicted, built up the mother pearl of God's grace, and makes salvation possible to those who he beautifies as they respond to his forgiveness. Are you there? Do you identify yourself as part of the pearl made precious by him? If not, respond now, and prepare yourself for a time around the table of our Lord when we take this bread and wine, and we thank him from the depths of our being for all that he has achieved on our behalf. A moment or two of prayer.

There's a little song that says, Jesus, take me as I am. I can come no other way. Take me deeper into you, make my flesh life melt away.

Let's listen to the piano playing. I will stand and sing this very sensitively. It's 292 Songs of Fellowship, if you can't see the overheads.

This is the pearl responding to the precious salvation that Jesus has extended to us. Take me deeper into you. Jesus shall be filled.

Filled for the presence of the Lord. The Holy One is here. We call him now with reverence and fear.

In Hebrew say he's now. He's now no more. He's still more.

He's shining. In fact, in this speech from him, be still for the glory of the Lord is moving in this place.