From our Sunday service on August 24, 2025, Luke 12, Luke 16, Matthew 13, and Luke 14. This is part 2 of our Parables of Christ series. Watch the full message: Kingdom Treasure – The Parables of Christ #2 on YouTube.
We are continuing in the parables of Christ, and today’s topic is kingdom treasure. Jesus encourages us to avoid the mistake of misplaced investment, and then He shows us what is worth everything we have. God wants you to forsake everything for His kingdom.
The Rich Fool
Jesus is in the middle of a sermon on the leaven of the Pharisees, warning that their false teachings will poison your walk with God, when a man steps in and says, Master, speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me. Jesus answers, Man, who made me a judge or a divider over you? Take heed, and beware of covetousness. Notice that He had been calling the people He was talking with my friends, but when this man tries to make the kingdom about a personal dispute, Jesus will not take the case. Did the man have a right to the inheritance? Almost certainly yes. The firstborn son got a double portion, and whatever was left was split among the other sons. But this was not Jesus’s role. The man needed to go to the judges assigned by Israel’s government. Jesus’s role was spiritual teacher and Savior, not lawyer. Ministry like His cannot be mixed with law, politics, or business without compromising what God called you to do.
Then He tells of a rich man whose ground brought forth plentifully, probably several years’ worth of harvest at once. The man thinks within himself, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? He never asks what God might want done with the surplus, or who around him might need it. He says he will pull down his barns, build greater, and then say to his soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. Note how many times he says my and I. His whole world is himself. God calls him a fool and takes his life that night: then whose shall those things be? You can hoard for yourself all your life, saying for me, for me, for me, and you still cannot keep it.
The Rich Man and Lazarus
Luke 16 gives another illustration of the same danger. A certain rich man is clothed in purple and fine linen, and fares sumptuously every day. A beggar named Lazarus is laid at his gate, full of sores, desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table, and the dogs come and lick his sores. The beggar dies and is carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also dies and is buried.
And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.
Luke 16:23–24
The Greek word used here is Hades, which should be understood as the Hebrew Sheol, the abode of the dead before the resurrection of Jesus. Before Jesus died on the cross, nobody could make it to heaven, so everybody went to Sheol. Those destined for salvation were in one spot and those destined for eternal punishment in another. Lazarus is in the good spot, and the rich man is in the bad one. Why does he ask Abraham and not God? Jesus has not died on the cross yet, and the bridge has not been made yet. Abraham has no power to do anything here. He is not God, and there is a division between them. Abraham reminds him that he received his good things in his lifetime, and Lazarus evil things, and now Lazarus is comforted and he is tormented. The hint is that the rich man let this man die on his porch rather than give him leftover food he was going to throw away.
The rich man then asks that Lazarus be sent to his father’s house, to his five brethren, lest they also come to this place of torment. Abraham says they have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead. If the teachings of God do not convince you to do right, nothing else will. They had the law of Moses and the prophets’ rebuke to Israel when they despised the poor. They knew Israel went into exile over this, and still they did it. If Lazarus were sent back from the dead, the brothers would make the same excuses. Scripture is clear about how to treat your neighbor, and there are whole stretches of the Bible dedicated to helping people see how they should treat the less fortunate. The rich man missed the point completely.
Treasure and Pearl
Then Jesus shows us the value of the kingdom. The kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field, which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field. This is not pirate treasure. People in that world often buried their life savings in the ground. A man digs up one of these troves, worth millions of dollars in today’s money, and sells everything to buy the field, because the treasure is worth more than all he had.
Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.
Matthew 13:45–46
In the first century, pearls were among the most valuable things you could buy and sell. Divers risked their lives to get them. Pliny the Elder gives the price of one pearl, the largest in the world at the time, as 58.6 tons of silver. At today’s silver value that is about $71.5 million, or in Roman wages about 15 million days of work for a single pearl. Suetonius records that Julius Caesar gave a pearl to his favorite mistress valued at 5.86 tons of silver, about $7.15 million today, or 150,000 days of Roman wages. That is the lower end of the pearl market. When the merchant found a pearl of great price, he sold all that he had and bought it, because it was worth more than all he had. The value of the gospel and the kingdom of heaven is incomprehensible. It goes far beyond the value of any earthly item. Have any of us sold all that we have because we finally saw what the kingdom is worth? That is the question these two short parables are meant to leave with us.
Count the Cost
Jesus then turns to the great multitudes following Him half-heartedly and tells them what it truly means to follow Him. If any man come to Me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after Me, cannot be My disciple. He gives two pictures. First, a man intending to build a tower sits down and counts the cost, whether he has enough to finish it, lest after he has laid the foundation he is not able to finish, and people begin to mock him. A lot of people want to walk with God, say they want to be a Christian, and then see the expense of it and back away. They see the people they would have to forgive, the habits they would have to leave, the reputation they might lose, and they decide the foundation is far enough. Jesus says to count the cost before you start, and then to finish.
Second, a king going to make war against another king sits down first and consults whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand. If not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends an ambassage and desires conditions of peace. One day the eternal King, King Jesus, is coming to your city with an army bigger than any other. You have two choices. Do you fight against Him, or do you come to terms of peace?
That sounds devastating, so Jesus also assures us, Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not. He calls you to surrender not just some, but all. But surrendering all does not leave us with nothing. Your Father knows you have need of food and drink. The nations of the world seek after those things, but if you seek the kingdom, these things shall be added unto you. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. If your treasure is in this world, it will pass away. If it is in Christ, it will last forever. God wants you to forsake everything for His kingdom, because what you gain in Him is infinitely greater than anything you could ever lose. Will you choose to forsake everything for His kingdom today?
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