Worth Every Sacrifice

Article by 

David Mathis

Executive Editor, desiringGod.org

Jesus told a one-sentence parable about a man who “sold all that he had.” He was a merchant who found something so precious that it far surpassed even the sum of all the other treasures he held dear.

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. (Matthew 13:45–46)

One supremely precious pearl. One single pearl of exceedingly great value. So great, in fact, so precious, that he sold everything, including all his other fine pearls, to buy this one surpassingly great pearl.

Jesus Taught in Twos

Jesus pairs this parable with another one-sentence lesson about treasure hidden in a field (Matthew 13:44). Jesus often does this in his teaching: pairing two illustrations, each with their individual emphases, to make the same general point (Carson, Matthew, 376).

Earlier in Matthew 13, it’s mustard seeds with leaven (Matthew 13:31–33), to show God’s surprising way of bringing to earth the fullness of heaven’s kingdom. In Matthew 13:44–46, Jesus accents the superlative worth of his kingdom. The pairing not only reinforces the point, but fills out the picture, and introduces new contours of meaning.

Treasure and Pearl

In the first parable (Matthew 13:44), the hidden treasure is found “by chance,” it seems, without the man looking intentionally for it. In the surprise of it all, the accent falls on his shocking and happy response: from his joy he goes and sells all he has to buy the field. Joy flooded his heart as he stumbled on such value.

In the second parable (Matthew 13:45–46), we have a merchant. He is looking. He is searching high and low, near and far. Well does he know the value of pearls. In the ancient world, pearls “were regarded as very precious,” says George Knight, “in more demand even than gold” (Pastoral Epistles, 135). And this merchant is not just seeking pearls but “fine pearls” — beautiful pearls, precious pearls. His palate is refined. He has a keen eye.

The merchant’s life has been bound up with pursuing the most precious of earthly objects. Now, he comes across one singular pearl of such beauty, of such great value, one pearl so precious, he goes and sells all he has to have it. The emphasis is not on his accidental find but on the over-the-top fulfillment of an intentional search. Now the accent is not on the subjective response of joy but on the exceedingly precious value of the object.

Worth Every Sacrifice

Together the short parables contribute to one picture, seen in the obvious repetition: the man sells all he has to obtain the newfound treasure. However accidental or intentional the search, the man has come upon something of such value that he is eager (“from his joy”) to count all else loss in view of the surpassing value of the treasure — of the exceeding preciousness of the pearl.

Neither parable minimizes the cost. In fact, both draw attention to it: literally, “all things, as much he has.” There is a cost — a great cost — to this discipleship. But the Discipler, who is himself the Treasure, so far outstrips the cost that we gladly say, “Gain!” This one great pearl is so surpassingly precious that many even say with the great army of missionaries and martyrs, like David Livingstone, “I never made a sacrifice.”

What will it look like for Christ’s kingdom to come to us like this? How do we receive Jesus as an infinitely valuable treasure, or a singularly great pearl, that far surpasses all else? The concept of superlative worth or supreme preciousness in Matthew 13 points us to at least two pictures elsewhere in the New Testament.

Exceedingly Precious

The first is the anointing at Bethany (John 12:3–8; also Mark 14:3–9). Martha served. Lazarus, freshly resurrected, reclined at table. Their sister Mary “took a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair” (John 12:3). Here, expensive is the same word used for the one great pearl in Matthew 13 (Greek polutimos, “exceedingly precious”). So manifestly, uncomfortably valuable was the ointment that the disciples, and chiefly Judas, registered their concerns. “Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?” (John 12:5).

A denarius was a laborer’s daily wage. This ointment represented a whole year’s earnings for a six-days-a-week worker. Likely this was Mary’s nest egg for the future. And yet, as precious as it was, she saw Jesus as more precious. She saw him as surpassingly valuable. She poured her future on his feet, and in doing so, she demonstrated who was supremely precious to her.

Supremely Valuable

Paul takes up the same search, sacrifice, and joy in Philippians 3. Did he perhaps see himself in the merchant of Jesus’s parable? If so, what were the “fine pearls” he amassed before encountering the supreme preciousness of Christ? He provides a list: “circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless” (Philippians 3:5–6).

As a leader among the strictest sect of his religion, he had an unassailable pedigree (what he couldn’t control, by birth) and performance (what he could, by effort). These were fine pearls indeed. Until he stumbled upon a Treasure who confronted him, knocked him off his horse, and opened his eyes. This was a Treasure that had been hidden from Paul, and yet one he had long been seeking. Now Paul saw Jesus as the one great Pearl of all-surpassing preciousness, and he counted all to be loss — both pedigree and performance — in view of “the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Philippians 3:8). Jesus became to him both an infinitely priceless Treasure to gain and a supremely precious Pearl to know.

God, in all his divine goodness, took on flesh in this one man Jesus. “In him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (Colossians 2:9). Finding him as your one Precious will not poison and shrink your soul. He is the antidote to what ails us, the catalyst to expand our small hearts, the surprising remedy we’ve long been seeking.

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Hope Distinguishes Us

Article by 

Matt McCullough

Pastor, Nashville, Tennessee

“Sojourners and exiles.” When Peter wrote his first letter to new believers living in Asia Minor, that’s how he addressed them. Not that they had relocated. For all we know, they were living in the same homes in the same towns that they’d always lived in. They hadn’t moved. But they had become resident aliens — living in one country, belonging to another.

What exactly made them aliens? How were they meant to stand out?

Christians aren’t set off by a specific sort of clothing. We don’t have our own styles of music. We don’t have our own language or even a distinct way of talking. We don’t belong to a specific class or ethnicity. We don’t have unique dietary restrictions. We don’t all live in or hail from a specific geographical area. We aren’t defined or distinguished by any of the things that normally mark off one people from another.

So, what is it that makes Christians to be aliens wherever we go? Peter’s answer is crucial for how we understand our place and engage the communities and cultures where God has placed us. What makes Christians aliens, even in their hometowns, is hope. Hope defines us and distinguishes us.

Hope Defines Us

In 1 Peter 1:3, Peter says God has “caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” Born again to a living hope. Think of “birth” as a shorthand for the things that make up who you are.

I was born a McCullough. That came with connotations. It made me a southerner. It made me an Auburn fan. It gave me my genetic disposition to preternatural baldness. Peter’s readers were born into an identity too. Maybe some were Romans. Maybe others were born into specific tribes with long histories and strong group solidarity. Perhaps they came into a family trade like fishing or carpentry.

Whatever may have defined them before, because of God’s love, by the power of God’s Spirit, they now were born again. And what identity comes with this new birth? Hope. Hope is the family resemblance people recognize. Hope is the family culture. And hope is the family birthright.

In 1 Peter 1:4, Peter explains this hope as an inheritance so precious and unprecedented that he can only describe what it is by describing what it’s not:

• Imperishable: It won’t wither and die like everything else.
• Undefiled: It can’t be corrupted by our selfishness, our fear of losing it, our pride over it, or our unrealistic and disappointed expectations of it.
• Unfading: It won’t bring joy that flares up and then burns out, leaving you wondering what’s next.

This inheritance, grounded on the work of Christ and guarded by God’s power, defines the life of the Christian.

Hope Distinguishes Us

This same hope that grounds our lives as Christians also sets our lives apart from who we once were and from the lives of those whose hopes are different. In Peter’s first chapter, setting up a section on Christian holiness, he describes a before and after that hinges on hope. “Do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance” (1 Peter 1:14). That was then. Now, instead, “set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:13).

It’s not that Christians are hopeful now when they weren’t hopeful before. It’s that we now live with a different hope than what we lived with before, and it fuels a different passion. In our ignorance, we set our hopes in the near-at-hand and kept our horizons low. We were carried along by our wants, wave by wave, rolling toward all sorts of quick-hitting pleasures and short-term possessions. We look for a meaningful life in the realm of the perishable, the defiled, and the fading.

One mark of the new birth is a new perspective on the impermanence of those hopes on which we were tempted to build our lives. I think that’s why Peter, writing again of the new birth (1 Peter 1:23–24), fills out his meaning with a quote from Isaiah 40:

All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.

Peter reminds them that everything they formerly hoped in withers, and why they’ve now built on the only hope that can stand the test of time.

Three Ways We Differ

It’s with the image of withering grass as his backdrop that Peter describes the Christian as a spiritual house built on a new and better cornerstone, “a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious” (1 Peter 2:4–5). It’s an unmistakable contrast: the grass that withers, the flower that falls, and the cornerstone that rests in its place forever.

Of course, many ways exist for Christians to show their alien identity. Much of what Peter writes from this point lays out these differences, one by one. But behind them all, fueling them, is this living stone of hope on which the Christian’s life depends for everything.

This hope implies a different way of treating each other (1 Peter 2:1–3). When you know the glory of flesh falls like a dried-up flower, why envy what others have or pretend you’re better than you are? Why cling to what you can’t keep when you know you have an imperishable inheritance nothing can take away?

This hope creates a different posture toward power (1 Peter 2:13–3:7). If only the fittest survive, then power is everything, but if your life is guarded by God’s power, you’re free to honor him in any condition and do good even to those who don’t deserve it.

This hope inspires a different response to suffering (1 Peter 3:13–17; 4:12–19). When our horizons don’t stretch beyond life in this world, suffering is only ever loss. We might see it as shameful and deserved, or it might be tragic and unexpected, but one way or another it is always and only loss. But not with Christ as cornerstone. One with him, we expect something of what he went through. But one with him, we also expect our suffering to be productive and fully redeemed, just like his was.

Surely all of us resonate with Peter’s categories in one way or another. But his list was never meant to be exhaustive. His letter is an invitation to take up the work of lifelong self-examination, in the context of our Christian communities, asking one another: How has hope changed you?

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Bleakness in Life

When we begin to despair in life — about marriage, or lost loved ones, or sickness, or work, or ministry — darkness falls like a fog.

Spiritually, we struggle to make sense of our surroundings. The eyes of our heart squint, searching for even a fragment of the light of Christ. In those days (or weeks, or years), we will be tempted to try and dispel the darkness — to alleviate the discomfort of waiting on God — by lighting our life a thousand other ways. Instead of navigating the deeper darkness by patiently following the voice of God, we will look for a torch of our own making.

Isaiah warned a despondent and wandering Israel against walking by theirs: “Behold, all you who kindle a fire, who equip yourselves with burning torches! Walk by the light of your fire, and by the torches that you have kindled! This you have from my hand: you shall lie down in torment” (Isaiah 50:11). God’s warning is clear: if we walk by the light of our own torches when darkness falls, we will eventually be burned by them.

Torches We Bear

Years ago, I experienced an especially dark season when I fell back into sexual sin after years of defeating temptation. The fall cost me greatly, and it (graciously) landed me in a desperation I had not known before. The bitterness of those days was a kindness that led me to enduring repentance, vigilance, and purity. But the days were often bitter and dark. I tasted the consequences of my own sinfulness, especially how it hurt the ones I loved. I often had a hard time looking God (or anyone else) in the face.

I was tempted to despair. What if I never win this war? What if these relationships never heal? What if I forfeit future ministry? What if I fall again?In moments like these, Satan interrogates us with all the wrong questions, trying to drown out God’s voice with daunting fears and doubts. Whether the darkness is self-inflicted, like mine was, or falls outside of our control, like it often does, the descent of darkness can simultaneously leave us more desperate than ever and yet deaf to God — the savior, helper, and counselor we need when the lights go out. So, instead of relying on him and his word, we often learn to cope, to crawl through the darkness on our own.

How do you soothe yourself in the throes of the unbearable? Maybe you medicate with distraction, defaulting to simple and superficial pleasures that keep your mind from the darker realities you face. You watch, or eat, or shop, whatever it takes not to feel, even for a few seconds. Maybe you prefer to wallow in self-pity, experiencing comfort only when you obsess over your pain. Instead of building a tower of Babel, you carve out a canyon to try and hide from reality. Maybe you take your despair out on others, turning the broken shards of glass in your heart into weapons. If you see someone else suffer, you don’t feel so alone anymore. It feels like justice — or at least equality.

We’re not proud of the torches we light. They not only expose the quiet idolatries we cultivate, but they also uncover just how unprepared we are for trials. They illumine our besetting sins and our weaknesses. And, as Isaiah warns, they damn us if we depend on them. We’re ashamed of them, but we trust them, at least when we’re desperate.

Bleakness in Life

Why do we abandon God in the darkness? When life does not go the way we expect or want, we can be tempted to become bitter (or at least suspicious) toward God. When life turns for the better, we may run gladly into his sovereign, all-knowing arms. But when life turns for the worse, the same infinite power and wisdom may seem suddenly dangerous, careless, aloof. He is absolutely and completely sovereign, so isn’t he ultimately to blame? The thought can leave us looking for a match to strike.

When God’s people begin to resent how he rules, grumbling, complaining, and falling into despondency, he responds, “Why, when I came, was there no man; why, when I called, was there no one to answer?” (Isaiah 50:2). I warned you, and I was patient with you. Where were you when I called? Their distress is not owing in any way to God’s neglect. No. “For your iniquities you were sold, and for your transgressions your mother was sent away” (Isaiah 50:1). The bleakness of life is owing to the blackness of sin, often our own. Not to any wrong in God.

When life gets hard, God does not want us to begrudge his plan; he wants us to bank on his love. “Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear” (Isaiah 59:1–2). God is able to save us from whatever we face. He wants to carry our anxieties because he cares for us (1 Peter 5:6–7).

His ear is not closed to us. His heart is not dull toward us. Yet we refuse to have him, because the darkness in us and around us has hidden him from us.

Walk (Not) by Sight

As the crowds closed their ears to the Lord’s invitations and warning, lighting up their God-despising torches, Isaiah says a listener arose from among the deaf — a servant strong enough to suffer injustice and compassionate enough to care for and sustain the weak.

While so many, disillusioned by despair, covered their ears and resented their own Lord in their hearts, this servant boldly says, “The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary. Morning by morning he awakens; he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught” (Isaiah 50:4). While others were striking matches, he followed his ear, through pitch-black darkness, to the words of life. When he could not see the light, he listened for it instead.

Then he says in the next verse, “The Lord God has opened my ear” (Isaiah 50:5). In the darkest hour, God did it for the Lord’s servant. In a far darker hour, he did the same and more for Christ (John 17:8). If you can hear his voice in your dark hours, it’s because he has done it (Matthew 11:15). He has opened the ears of your heart. Do not despise his voice; do not reach for a torch of your own making. No, let this extraordinary hour of darkness teach you how to walk by faith, and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7).

Walk by Another Light

If we walk by the light of our own torches, we will be burned. How, then, do we persevere in our darkness of desperation? Isaiah lights the other path. “Who among you fears the Lord and obeys the voice of his servant? Let him who walks in darkness and has no light trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God” (Isaiah 50:10). Trust him, rely on him, listen to him. Toss aside the torches you’re tempted to trust in, and walk by the light of his voice — the voice we hear only in his word. Repent, believe, and take the next step.

If you can hear his voice, he has awakened your ears to hear. And among all that he says to you, he promises, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you” (Isaiah 43:2). No matter how dark it gets, I will be with you. “I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you” (Isaiah 41:10).

And when we sit in darkness, surrounded by obstacles and enemies, and even our own failures, we can say, “Rejoice not over me, O my enemy; when I fall, I shall rise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me” (Micah 7:8). When we’re laid low and made desperate, tempted even to despair, he will be all the light we need.

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