Matthew 13:44-46 “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.”

The Kingdom of heaven… I like these parables. I particularly like what they tell you about the kingdom of heaven.

First, the kingdom of heaven is so valuable. In today’s talk it would be, “Church building: $500,000. Church pulpit: $560. Kingdom of Heaven: priceless.” (very lousy analogy, but you get what I’m saying) And the kingdom of heaven is valuable. It should be our highest goal.

Secondly, both of these people found it. They were searching for something. To me, that says that we are all missing something. We all have this certain hole in our hearts, and, whether we realize it or not, we are looking for the perfect piece to fill that hole. Notice how when both men found that missing piece, it meant so much to them, that they absolutely had to have it. They were willing to give away all that they possessed to gain it. That leads me to my third point…

The price of the kingdom of heave is nothing. While it is priceless, it costs us nothing. But this is a special kind of nothing, you see we must have nothing to buy it. Paradoxical, I know. If you look at Matthew 5:3 though – “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”- then you find the answer. The poor in spirit that Matt 5:3 refers to is spiritually poor. We are to only belong to Jesus. We are to give up all of our other desires. We are not to worship money or popularity or our game systems. We are to give all of that up, for only then may we attain the kingdom of heaven.