"Treasure Hunt"

 

Readings: Psalm 49:1-12, Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14; 2:18-23, Colossians 3:1-11, Matthew 13:44-53
Preached at Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church, NY, July 31, 2022

This morning I invite you to a treasure hunt. Matthew 13:44. “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”

The man looking for treasure travels through three stages.

•    There was firstly DISCOVERY
•    Then there was DELIGHT
•    Then came DEDICATION

Let us consider those three things.

DISCOVERY

The hidden treasure I am inviting you to discover this morning is the Kingdom of God. Everyone of us here is somewhere along the road in the search for that treasure. 

The fact that you are reading this means that you sense the Kingdom of God is somehow important. Every sermon and every service of worship is an invitation to come and experience the richness and the value of God. Every time we meet for worship is a treasure hunt.

If you ever have to do any digging in the yard you know that eventually you are going to strike a stone. You expect that. But it can still give you a jolt! Occasionally you hit something and you think, 'Hey, that feels different, that's not a stone'. So, you look down and clear the earth away, and you see a bit at a time. If you are lucky you may have discovered something of real value.

For many people it is just like that with the Christian message. When Paul, one of the first great converts to Christianity, tried to preach his message, he knew it was something that people had to approach as a discovery. He writes to the church in Corinth “If the Good News we preach is hidden , it is hidden only from people who are perishing. …. the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News.” (2 Cor. 4:3-4 NLT)

The treasure of the gospel is often hidden to us by a society that enshrines many false gods. We lift up celebrities as role models, we are cushioned by materialism, we want instant answers and quick fixes, we want the next 'thing'. Our culture often refuses to acknowledge it's need for a spiritual foundation.

At times the church hasn't helped in the process of discovery. Jesus has been hidden within our stained glass windows, traditions and theologies. We have treated faith as such an intensely private thing that we are not sure how to share our beliefs with those who don't share them.

Yet there are treasures hidden mysteriously deep in ourselves. It is a basic biblical teaching that we are all created in the image of God. Whilst in each of us that image is tarnished by our compromises and sins, there remain resources in ourselves that we can tap into if we are prepared to dig for them. 

During His earthly ministry Jesus recognized that even in those society rejected, even in the lives of those whom others looked down their noses at, lay the capacity for renewal and change. The darkest places still hide deep treasures.  He called people by name and acknowledged their needs and affirmed that their lives counted to God.

Our lives matter to God. They are something God treasures. They are something God desperately wants to be a part of. They are something He sent His Son Jesus Christ, to die for that there be no barrier between ourselves and God's love.

To me that is one of the greatest discoveries any person can find. That the God they once thought of as distant and unreal can become personal and relevant and of more value to them than precious gold. That's what this little parable talking of hidden treasure is all about. The man digging in his field and discovering a treasure that is going to change the rest of his life. After he makes this discovery comes a second thing.

DELIGHT

 "The Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure that a man discovered hidden in a field. In his excitement, he hid it again and sold everything he owned to get enough money to buy the field.” (Mat 13:44 NLT)

The New Living Translation talks about excitement.  Other translations use the word 'joy' or 'delight'. If you find hidden treasure whilst digging in your yard you are going to be well pleased! But if you have any sense, you won't go bragging about it to the whole neighborhood. Notice that the man hides it for a while!

I was in my later teens when the things of God's Kingdom started to become a reality to me. I made a commitment to be a follower of Jesus Christ.  I was stupid enough to believe that meant that I now had all the answers, or more irritatingly, that only my answers were the right ones.  You remember how it was in our late teens. There were no gray areas. Everything was black and white, right or wrong.

My initial attempts at sharing my faith were a disaster. Mostly because it took a while for my lifestyle to catch up with my mindset. I was talking the talk, without walking the walk. My self-righteous outpourings alienated people rather than inspiring them to draw near to God.

It took me a while to understand that one of the great values of Christian faith is that it does not provide compact, easy, answers to all our dilemmas. What it does helps us to do is ask the right questions. To think outside the box … or one could say think outside the tomb... as we are called to be an Easter people, whatever the season of the year, “Hallelujah” remains our song. 

The grace that God provides, through the help that is the guiding Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ, we can discover life lessons to treasure and guide us through the complex mess of our lives.

That for me is where the delight comes in. When Jesus exercised His earthly ministry and people were touched by His love, they came alive. No matter what sort of people they were, in terms of social standing or morality, or any other classification, once they glimpsed something of His love then they started to ask the right sorts of questions. They started to live in a way that brought some of the things of the Kingdom He kept talking about to be a part of their lives.

To use the terminology of the apostle Paul, he rejoices in the great mystery that our lives, which are nothing more than 'common clay pots' can become vessels of 'spiritual treasure'.

This delight is not simply an emotional response, it is something deeper than that. It is a delight that transforms us.  Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 4:8-9  “We are experiencing all kinds of trouble, but we aren't crushed. We are confused, but we aren't depressed.  We are harassed, but we aren't abandoned. We are knocked down, but we aren't knocked out.” In the  midst of an often unfriendly world it is a delight to know that there is a God who is on our side. But if we want that sort of treasure, there has to be a third thing;

DEDICATION

The last part of the parable tells us of the man that “In his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” The ancient wisdom of the book of Proverbs puts it this way: “Turn your ear toward wisdom, and stretch your mind toward understanding. Call out for insight, and cry aloud for understanding. Seek it like silver; search for it like hidden treasure. Then you will understand the fear of the LORD, and discover the knowledge of God”. (Proverbs 2:2-5)

Dedication is never an easy task. There are many stumbling blocks that prevent us from achieving our purpose. Often the biggest stumbling block we have is our self. For as we allow the Spirit of God to dig deep into our lives, what is revealed is not always sweetness and light.

In Luke 6:45 Jesus tells His listeners; “A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. What you say flows from what is in your heart.”
    
The challenge can be framed by a simple question; 'What are our hearts full of?' The gospel message is not so much about external behavior as it is about the inward attitudes that our behavior stems from. If we can get our heart in order, then everything else finds its rightful place. The treasure is inside!

But recognize this... Good treasure is always worth having! And the treasure which is Jesus Christ is the greatest treasure of all. We learn about it in the Scriptures. We can discover its living reality through prayer. We can discover it in worship. We can discover it through our service of others.

So today we are invited to go on a treasure hunt. I've been on it for a while now and what I have discovered has changed my life for the better. It is still far from perfect, it is still treasure in a clay-pot, but that is just as well, because I don't want anybody to become followers of me, but disciples of Jesus Christ.

God has great blessings for us all, if we can but have the commitment to keep on digging. There is treasure beyond our wildest dreams.

•    Treasure to DISCOVER
•    Treasure to DELIGHT IN
•    Treasure to DEDICATE OURSELVES TO

Matthew 13:44
“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field,
which someone found and hid;
then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”

 The Reverend Adrian J. Pratt B.D.

“Recharging Our Batteries”

Readings: Deuteronomy 30:9-14,Colossians 1:1-14,Luke 10:25-37, Psalm 73
Preached at Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church, NY, July 10 2022

Have you ever had a car that didn’t like to start in the mornings? You get up, ready to go, outside, shut the door, put on the seat belt and ‘UR-UR-UR-UR - CLUNK”. Not a thing. The batteries dead. The only way you are going to move is if somebody gives you a push or rescues you with jump leads.

The battery is still good. The cells in the battery are not dead; it just doesn’t have the power to operate. There are days when we know exactly how that battery feels! According to a poll in the Readers Digest a few years back one of the most frequently asked questions of pastors was “How do I recharge my spiritual batteries?”

The writer of Psalm 73 faces a similar dilemma. In Verse 2 he writes “My feet had almost stumbled, my steps had well nigh slipped.” The old English word for ‘the feeling that God’s grace was getting you through’ was ‘unction’. The psalmist’s problem?  The ‘unction’ had ceased to function; their ‘Ford’ was no longer trucking for the Lord!

Let me offer three insights from the Psalmist on how we can recharge our spiritual selves.
1)    Acknowledge the need
2)    Share the load
3)    Activation

Acknowledge the Need.

The Psalmist begins by being clear about their situation. They were losing it. They were stumbling and were in danger of falling. Their relationship with God was slipping away from them.

Be honest with God about your spiritual state. It’s no good before God saying that everything is all right if it’s not. We can fool each other, but we can’t fool God. If we feel like a spiritual wash out then we have to take that situation to God.

Rev. Lloyd John Ogilvie, retired Chaplain for the United States Senate and for twenty years pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood, CA, wrote a book called ‘Falling into Greatness.’ In it he tells of an unsophisticated wild-west preacher who during a funeral service pointed to the coffin and said, “I want you to know that this corpse has been a member of the church for thirty years.”

Scripture suggests that we can either be spiritually dead or spiritually alive. That it is possible to be a member of a religious community yet be a corpse when it comes to having a vital life changing relationship with God.

One way of gauging how our relationship with God is going is to monitor our cynicism levels.  When the psalmist looked to those who wanted to live in any which way but the way of God, he became bitter and cynical.

The New Living Translation has him saying between verses 4 and 13: “I envied the proud when I saw them prosper despite their wickedness. They seem to live such painless lives; their bodies are so healthy and strong.  They don't have troubles like other people; they're not plagued with problems like everyone else…  These fat cats have everything their hearts could ever wish for! …Did I keep my heart pure for nothing? Did I keep myself innocent for no reason?”

Have you noticed how if you are feeling down or depressed or washed-out... how hard it is to keep a realistic perspective? Because you feel personally low, you paint the whole world gray. You make out things are worse than they really are, molehills become mountains, insignificant problems become tremendous causes for anxiety.

As the Psalmist struggles through he realizes that he needs to acknowledge his feelings.  Verse 16: “Though I tried to understand all this, it was too difficult for me,”
Verses 21-22; “Since my heart was embittered and my soul deeply wounded, I was stupid and could not understand; I was like a brute beast in Your presence.”

Before we can be spiritually recharged we need to stop pretending and acknowledge we are washed out. We need to realize that the power has gone and we need to be charged up. That’s the first step, acknowledge our need. Step two is:

Share the Load.

When I was in seminary over in Wales, Great Britain, I possessed one of those cars that didn’t like the mornings.  A 4 Cylinder Morris Marina Estate (as pictured above). Early one misty Sunday morning I needed to drive about two hours to preach in a church in another town. We got to the car park, turned the key and...”WURR-WURR-WURR – Click”.

Mr. Morris Marina’s 4 little cylinders were not playing ball. Now early on Sunday mornings in college towns in Wales you were not going to find a garage open to service your vehicle. Neither would anybody appreciate you knocking on their door asking if they could give you a push. “Lord” I said “Help!”

A short whilst later turning into the Car Park came a guy in a flashy Jaguar XJ6. He turned out to not only have jump leads in his boot – or rather trunk as you say in these parts – but was a good Samaritan prepared to lend a hand. He lifted up the bonnet – that is hood – of the XJ6 – his engine all shiny gleaming and purring – attached the jump leads to my little rather tired looking engine – I turned the key and I tell you – that Morris Marina – jumped to attention. ‘Yes Sir – let’s go! I am the Little Morris that can!’

Where do we go when we need spiritually recharging? The Psalmist tells us in verse 17:  “Though I tried to understand all this, it was too difficult for me, Until I entered the sanctuary of God”. As the Living Bible has it, “I went into Your temple… and then I understood!”

Where do we go when we want to be spiritually recharged? To the pastor? To our Sunday School Teacher? To the elders on call? To the liquor store? To the T.V and wait for Oprah or Dr. Phil to come on?  Do we Google ‘Help Needed’?

As Christians we have a direct line. Jesus Christ is our High Priest. He is the One who brings into our life the presence of God. He is our Sanctuary, our Holy place. He sends His Spirit to be the encourager, the Helper, the light, the guide. By-pass the middle man. When you need a recharge go direct to the source of power. When the Psalmist took his need to God, then He started to be charged up.

To meet spiritual need we need to connect with a spiritual source. When Mr. Morris Marina needed to be recharged, we connected him to a higher power, Mr. Jaguar. To meet our deepest needs, we should go to God, for only God can meet those needs! It was only then that the Psalmist started to regain his perspective.

Through verses 17 to 20 you find him saying things like, “I understand now what will happen to the wicked… They are like a bad dream that goes away in the morning… What goes around will come around, and their end is destruction’. As he reflected upon and contemplated God’s Word life stated to make sense again. He became less cynical, more willing to make a go of things, more aware that he was not alone, but that God was still walking right alongside.

Listen to verses 23-26   “I am always with You; You take hold of my right hand. With Your counsel You guide me, and at the end receive me with honor. Whom else have I in the heavens? None beside You delights me on earth.  Though my flesh and my heart fail, God is the rock of my heart, my portion forever.”

This is the same guy who early was saying, “Oh no, I’m losing it, I should just be wicked like everybody else’ Now he’s saying, “The wicked will get the welcome they should expect… as for me, I will serve the Lord. God is my Rock!” What happened? He realized his need and got serious with God about seeing that met.

If we take our need for recharge to God, I believe we will start to understand, something will happen, some word of encouragement, some Scripture will grab our attention, something that makes us sit up and take notice and regain the perspective of a child of God. But we shouldn’t leave it there. One final word.

Activation

There was a reason why the battery in my car that day had gone flat. I hardly ever used it. Everything I needed was in town, and the only time I left town was on those occasional Sundays when I needed to travel to a preaching engagement. So sometimes it would sit for weeks at a time in the Car Park or on the road. A car has an alternator, a dynamo that recharges the battery as you are driving along. If the alternator stops functioning the battery will go flat. The best way to prevent a battery from losing its charge is to keep it charged up.

The best way to prevent spiritual passion from sapping out of us is through staying fired up. Regular participation in spiritual things results in a life activated by the Holy Spirit. When we express our faith through regular habits, such as faithful attendance at worship, regular Bible Reading and corporate and private prayer, we have less opportunity to lose our focus.

Do something for someone else. Share your faith. Read a solid Christian book about some area of your faith that perplexes you. Take a greater role in a committee or mission of the church. Volunteer for something you haven’t tried before. Support financially a particular project you have not previously supported. What happens? Activation!

Hear how the Psalmist concludes his struggles. (Psalm 73:28)  “But as for me, how good it is to be near God! I have made the Sovereign LORD my shelter, and I will tell everyone about the wonderful things God does”.

We all stumble on our spiritual journeys. But how can we relight the fire?

•    We acknowledge our need. We are honest with ourselves about our lack of spiritual vitality.
•    We share the load. We take our life to God, we ask God to renew our perspective, to help us through
•    We Activate. We seek to live in a disciplined and spiritual way that keeps our aim true and our hearts centered in the love of Jesus Christ. To take the Psalmists words ‘We make the sovereign Lord our shelter and tell others about the wonderful things Gods can do!”

May God renew each of our lives today, through Jesus Christ and in the strength of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

 The Reverend Adrian J. Pratt B.D.

"Communion and Encouragement"

Readings: Psalm 33:12-22, Genesis 15:1-6, Luke 12:32-40, Acts 27:27-44
Preached at Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church, July 3rd, 2022

The closing chapters of the Book of Acts give us the stories of Paul's missionary journeys as he seeks to bring Christianity to the whole wide world. Our passage this morning dealt with his transportation to Rome, where he was going to be put on trial for crimes against the state. The Jewish authorities had wanted him taken to Jerusalem to be tried for treason. But Paul, knowing his rights as a Roman citizen, had appealed for his case to be heard in Rome.

He is on a boat in the Mediterranean sea, on the way to Rome, when an almighty storm starts to brew. Everyone on board, except Paul, panics. He stays calm, and prophecies that none of them will come to harm. The ship would be driven ashore to an island, which, when it happened, turned out to be the island of Malta.

Paul had the sort of faith that believes in a God who is Lord, even of the storm. He saw the hand of God amid that threatening tragedy. Right in the middle of the hysteria, we read; "Paul took some bread, gave thanks to God before them all, broke it, and began to eat. They took heart, and everyone of them also ate some food" (Acts 27:35-36).

The power of the storm, the wind, and the waves, they are reoccurring themes in the New Testament. The very first disciples were fishers well acquainted with the mysterious and sometimes deadly forces of nature. Jesus is pictured by the gospel authors as one who can hush the wind and calm the waters, even walk upon them.

The act of breaking bread reminds us of other occurrences of sharing bread that brought an unknown peace and sustenance to those present. Think of occasions such as the feedings of the 5000 and the 4000. Think of the experience of the two men on the Emmaus road, where the resurrected Christ became known to them at the end of their journey as He broke bread with them.

For those on the ship with Paul, their journey was far from over. Worse was to come. Through Paul's encouragement they faced it with a renewed confidence and assurance that somehow amongst all this craziness, disaster, and madness the hand of God was at work, and they need not fear, just trust Him.

A number of years ago there was a film that had the title, "It's a mad, mad world". When you read or listen to the news you can get the impression that whoever produced the phrase knew exactly what they were talking about. For even the bible pictures a world where chaos rather than creation reigns, where the forces of darkness seem to win the day, not the grandeur of light. A world which is a fallen world. A world of fear and struggle and toil whose lord is a prince of darkness, Satan, the great deceiver, and father of lies. A world of sin and sinners who care nothing about the love of God and are positively hostile towards His gentle claim of love upon their lives. A mad, mad world.

It was that sort of mad, mad, world that Jesus stepped right into the midst of. A dark, stormy world that laughed at Him, mocked Him, spat upon Him, and crucifies Him afresh in every generation. That is one of the messages that the bread and wine present to us. Jesus, God's precious beloved son, came amongst us. He touched us. He laughed and cried with us. He healed us. He taught us. He showed us with great love and care that He represented the Living God who had not abandoned the world but worked to restore and renew it.

 So, for that, we crucified Him, broke His body, hammered nails through His flesh and hung Him up for all the world to see. His blood poured out as He prayed "Father, forgive them, they don't know what they are doing". And it is quite clear in the storm of the crucifixion, that darkest moment in the pages of the world’s history, people didn't know what they were doing. Still less did they understand how God could be mixed up in it all; that He was about to turn tears into laughter and death into resurrection and disaster into triumph!

The storm continues to rage and roar around us. The mad, mad world continues in its mad, mad way. BUT if you and I can somehow embrace the message of Christ's victory and allow Him to live His life in our lives through the Holy Spirit's power, then we have nothing to fear. On the contrary, we have every reason to rejoice, for He offers new hope and forgiveness and strength to serve Him.

There is a hymn a that says.
"The storm may roar without me, My heart may low be laid,
But God is round about me, And can I be dismayed?"

You may say to me, "But, Adrian, I am dismayed, my heart is laid low, you can't be serious, everything's gone wrong!"
 
I know it is so hard to do, but in all humility, I say to you, "Stop looking at the storm". Stop focusing on the storm. I'm not saying ignore it. I'm not saying that it is going to go away. I'm not pretending that storms don't still cause shipwrecks and tragedy. But when everything around us is out of control we need to hear the still small voice of calm, the voice of God saying,

 "I am the Lord of the storm. Be encouraged.
Things are not out of control. I, the Lord your God, I am in control"

We must let Him be in charge. Let Jesus be Lord of our circumstances, our worries, our problems, our joys, and successes as well. Share them with Him, take the time to pray over these things with Him, talk to Him about them, listen to Him, meditate on what His Word offers us.

It wasn't a luxury cruise that Paul was on as he sailed to Rome. He was potentially under a death sentence. He was a prisoner. The storm wasn't just a passing wind, it was the sort of storm that had hardened sailors fearing for their lives and had atheists on their knees praying to unknown gods. The sort that caused ships to crumble before the merciless pounding of its waves. It was in that situation, "Paul took some bread, gave thanks to God before them all, broke it, and began to eat. They took heart, and everyone of them also ate some food"

That phrase there, "They took heart,, is one of those Greek words that it is hard to give the exact English equivalent for. It appears in Hebrew form in the Book of Proverbs 15:15 which reads, "Happy people enjoy life." Not evade life or endure life but enjoy it. It can mean "to raise your spirit up, to be encouraged, to feel better about things, to pluck up courage and be of good cheer."

That's what happened on that boat as Paul broke bread. That's what happened when he was able to bring them from a position where all they could see was the storm of a mad, mad, world, to a position where they were able to sense that beyond the storm was the hand of a God who hadn't abandoned them but would carry them through the wreck they were about to be faced with.

Today people will be breaking bread amid many stormy situations, many places where things will get worse before they get better. But as they break bread and share wine, they will be encouraged for they will remember there is a God who is greater than the storm.
 
We join with them around our communion table. We are not alone. We are in the company of friends, brothers, and sisters who form a chain of prayer and hope that circles and crisscrosses the mad, mad world. We are in the company of angels and the company of saints, a vast crowd of unseen witnesses who testify that there is a safe haven beyond the storm.

 All I want to say to you this morning is this; 

Remember Paul and how he broke bread during a storm. 

Remember how that simple action brought those who participated in it to the presence of God and lifted them to His presence. 

Now it's your turn.

Break Bread.
Drink wine.
Take courage.
Take heart.
For the love of Jesus Christ
Is greater than the storm.

The Reverend Adrian J. Pratt B.D.