Telling the Truth for Women

Guest (Male): The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all that he had and bought that field. Again, 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.

Jill Briscoe: So the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field. The kingdom of heaven is like a pearl of great price. Now what is the kingdom of heaven? What is the kingdom of God? Well, the kingdom of God is many things. Jesus said the kingdom of God is near you, as he went around preaching and teaching and healing and helping and showing off that he was the king of the kingdom.

It was near the people he was talking to because he was near the people that he was talking to. He announced the kingdom. He told his disciples to go and preach the kingdom. The kingdom of God is among you, it's near you. Then he said the kingdom of God is within you. People came and said, "When is the kingdom of God coming?"

And Jesus said, "Well, it's been among you, it's been near you, but the kingdom of God shall be in you when the king is in you." He said to his disciples, "I'm going away so that I can send the Holy Spirit who will make me real in you. I have been with you; I will be in you," he said in John's Gospel.

So the kingdom of God, as he said to the people as he taught and preached, is among you, is near you, and then he said the kingdom of God shall be within you. And he also said the kingdom of God is to come. There will be a time when the kingdom of God comes when Christ comes back at his second coming, the king is coming.

He will institute his kingdom, and that kingdom will be an eternal kingdom that shall never end. Revelation talks a lot about that as well as other books in the Bible, many books in the Bible, when he shall be King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and every knee shall bow whether they want to or not and acknowledge the fact. So the kingdom of God is many things.

When Jesus was rejected by the Pharisees very early on in his ministry, he began to use parables, stories. His disciples said, "Why are you doing this?" They asked this in Chapter 13. And he said, "Because people have rejected me, but there are many who will receive me and believe me, and I want them to search for me with all their hearts.

I want them to be serious about this. And seeing the Pharisees have rejected me, then I will only speak to them in parables and metaphor and story. It's not for them to know because they're not seekers; therefore they won't find. But you, if you search for me with all your heart, will understand the stories. I will explain them. I will reveal them to you.

I don't want my treasure lying on the open ground to be trampled underfoot, but you will find me when you seek for me with all your heart." And so there is a main point to parables—one main point and many details, but usually one main point. And the main point of these two little parables is this: there is nothing so valuable, there is nothing so important for us to seek Christ in all his riches and to know him as king in our lives.

The kingdom of God is any sphere of spiritual experience where God is king—any sphere, whether it's now because the king is within us, whether it's to come when we are forever at home in heaven with him. And the main point of both these parables is that a man or a woman or a boy or a girl should seek so much, it should become so important, so all-consuming, this spiritual search to find Christ as reality.

This sphere of spiritual reality, this should be worth possessing above anything else we possess. It is worth selling everything we have to find. It's a question of getting priorities in order. It's a question of seeing what's most valuable in life. A man's life does not consist in the things that he possesses, says the Bible.

And even though in our materialistic culture it seems that we're all on this search—if only I had this, if only I could have this vacation, if only I could have a bigger house or a bigger car or nicer clothes or better jewels, etc., etc.—no. If only I could find spiritual riches. That's the thing that's worth pursuing and possessing.

Let me read you a little story. To know Christ is to be rich beyond measure, wealthy beyond your wildest dreams. After all, Jesus is the jewel of heaven. Now there was a man who was the richest man in the valley. There was no disputing it. Secure and confident, he was escorting his house guests to their expensive cars when John, his gardener, cap in hand, approached him to give him a message.

The man was poor and shabbily dressed and looked embarrassed to be talking to the richest man in the valley. He shuffled from one foot to the other. "Well, out with it, man," his employer snapped impatiently, his eyes on his departing guests. "Sir," John stuttered, he was obviously very nervous, "Sir, I know this sounds mighty strange, but I had a dream last night, and it really upset me.

I dreamt that the richest man in the valley would die tonight at midnight. Are you all right, sir?" He finished lamely, feeling exceptionally stupid. His boss stared at him. John was all right as gardeners go. He worked hard and was as honest and trustworthy, but the richest man in the valley was aware that he attended the little evangelical church in the village and was one of those born-again Christians.

He'd never had much time for religion himself. He always felt too much church made you a little weird, and John's words confirmed his suspicions. "You don't need to worry about me, John," the richest man in the valley said impatiently and cheerfully, turning on his heel. John watched him disappear into the huge carved door of the mansion, and he felt relieved.

It had taken all of his courage to talk to the man, but the dream had been so real, so sharp. He'd never experienced anything like it. Had God sent him a message in his dream? He wondered. He worried about the richest man in the valley. He had no idea where he stood with God. The richest man in the valley closed the door of his beautiful home and looked around.

Silly to let the poor man's words bother him. Why? Things had never been better. Wouldn't do any harm, though, he mused, to invite his doctor round for a drink late in the evening. So late that night, the richest man in the valley and his doctor enjoyed a game of cards and talked at length about world affairs and the stock market.

The clock on the expensive wooden paneling ticked on. Five minutes to midnight, four minutes to midnight, three minutes to midnight, two minutes, one minute... midnight. Irritated with himself that he felt so relieved, the richest man in the valley bade the doctor goodnight and retired. He'd no sooner climbed into bed than the doorbell rang urgently.

Hurriedly wrapping his robe around him, the richest man in the valley ran downstairs to answer the frantic knocking. A young girl stood on the doorstep. Her eyes were red with weeping. Her clothes were old, and she carried what looked like her mother's purse. "What's the matter?" the richest man in the valley inquired not unkindly.

"Sir," she gulped, "I just came to tell you that tonight at midnight, my father died." "Your father? Who's your father?" asked the puzzled man. "John," the little girl replied softly, tears coursing down her face. "John, your gardener." The richest man in the valley.

To know Christ is to be rich beyond measure, wealthy beyond your wildest dreams. For after all, Jesus is the jewel of heaven. He's the treasure. He's the pearl of great price. Now God has made it possible to find and possess this pearl. Colossians 2:2: "My purpose," says God, "is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine-sounding arguments." Paul is speaking, God is speaking through Paul to all of us. There are so many fine-sounding arguments. If you want to have the riches of the world, then go here, go here. And yet it's only in Jesus. God has hidden, buried in Christ all his spiritual experiences he wishes us to possess for ourselves.

God's hidden treasure is Christ himself. And to know him is to know God and to begin to discover these spiritual riches. First of all, the Bible says that Jesus is the Father's indescribable gift. You know, there are some phrases that jumped out of the Bible to me last year, and I just gathered them. And they're all superlatives.

And when I was coming up to this day when I wanted to talk about Jesus, when I wanted to lift him high, these phrases kept tumbling back into my mind. They're all Scripture. The first one is the Father's indescribable gift, speaking about Jesus. Jesus is the Father's indescribable gift. He's indescribable, and yet I am trying to describe him.

It's impossible, and yet it must be done. He is described as the Father's indescribable gift. God's treasured pearl of great price is indescribable. It says in the Living New Testament, "A gift too wonderful for words." He is too wonderful for words, yet I must find words to tell you how wonderful he is. How can that be?

As I thought about him being God's pearl, I simply took an encyclopedia down to look up a little bit about pearls. I know nothing about pearls. I know a little bit now. Pearls in Jesus' day, when he gave this story, were the symbol of perfection. An unblemished pearl was one of the most ancient symbols of perfection in Jesus' society.

They ranked among the most famous jewels of the world. They don't do that now in our society, do they? We put more emphasis on gold. And yet in Jesus' day, gold and pearls had the same sense of value and perfection. Pearls were so highly esteemed in the ancient Roman world that only people of specific rank were permitted to wear them.

You could not obtain or wear pearls unless you were royalty, unless you were Caesar's household. You were not allowed to. It was forbidden. So when Jesus talked about a pearl of great price, people said, "Oh, yes, pearls. They're perfection. Only if you have some incredible position are you allowed to wear them."

They were considered the richest merchandise of all the most sovereign commodity in the whole world. I love that. They were considered the most sovereign commodity in the whole world. Jesus didn't wear pearls. He was a pearl. He was full of pearls of wisdom and knowledge because he was wisdom and knowledge.

The characteristics of pearls were that they were translucent. You could see right through them. The light shone through. They had a luster. There was a delicate play of surface color called orient. And the more perfect shape, the more value they were. One of the most treasured pearls that came from the East was the white pearl.

Do you remember when the disciples saw Jesus transfigured? His clothes became translucent, and the pearl shone through. So pearls were of great value. And Jesus was the Father's indescribable gift. And he took him and buried him in a field. He buried him in a field. And he buried him among the people in the world.

Jesus treasure—all God's riches are hidden in him. And God hid him, he buried him. Where did he bury him? He buried him in Mary's womb. No one would think to look for him there. No one would think to look for him there. A royal birth, God in embryo, growing to birth-size a baby boy became.

God's indescribable gift, wrapped in swaddling bands of grace. A light, translucent light, was lit in a bale of hay, setting the world on fire. Royal birth, God in embryo growing to birth-size. He buried him in Mary's womb. He buried him in Joseph's tomb. Twice buried. Buried in the womb, buried in the tomb.

Of course, he unburied him in a hurry on the third day, but he was buried. He was buried. And between the womb and the tomb, he displayed his pearl to anyone who sought for him with all their hearts. Anyone that sought for him with all their hearts. He was hidden in Mary's womb. He was hidden in Joseph's tomb.

But he was hidden in the world as a pearl among other pearls. He was a pearl among other pearls. When you just looked at Jesus the boy or the baby, he looked like any other baby because he was perfect man as well as perfect God. And so in a sense, he was hidden by becoming one of us. He was a boy, yet he was a different boy.

A boy was he yet very God of very God, a child yet wiser than his years. A boy was he yet very God of very God, the Lord's own lamb appears. A boy was he yet very God of very God, a carpenter's apprentice skilled. A boy was he yet very God of very God, the lamb his will fulfills. Divinity, breathing in air with a boy's lungs.

Eternity, eating a meal with a boy's joy. The Trinity, coming to stay in a boy's house, in a boy's pain, in a boy's world. Eminence contained, immanence experienced, holiness explained in a boy. Truth read clearly, love love dearly, God known nearly in a boy. A boy was he, a boy among boys.

Both he and other little boys look boys, but one was different, wasn't he? To the unexperienced eye, to the one that didn't care, they all looked the same. I'm wearing pearls today for this talk. Real ones. These are from the Middle East. They're white pearls. I have another pair that I got in Boston store on sale.

I got those out today, and I put them by each other, and I tell you, I really couldn't tell the difference. I really couldn't tell the difference. When I looked really hard, I could tell, from an experienced eye. But you see, God took his pearl and put him among other pearls. And it takes the expert; it takes the time and the trouble to learn to look, to search for the pearl of greatest price.

The treasure hidden in a field, God's indescribable gift. Now God described his gift. He described him as the son who had incomparable love. So now we have the Father's indescribable gift that's impossible to describe. No words for the wonder of it. And that gift is his son, his dearly beloved, his precious, his special treasure and pearl of greatest price.

And he is described in the Scriptures as somebody with incomparable love. There's nothing to compare his love with. So how am I going to compare it for you? How am I going to describe that? I cannot compare it with human love, for human love needs to be needed. Human love demands something in response.

I cannot compare it with eros love, the feeling too big for words, because that would be almost an insult to compare it with a love like that. So I have nothing to compare the love of God for you. So it's incredibly difficult to explain to people that the Father's indescribable gift is somebody so full of the Father's indescribable riches.

And yet you need to look for him. And you need to find him. It just means you're lost for words. Christ is an endless treasure trove. And available in knowing him are all these spiritual experiences of spiritual reality that everybody in the world is seeking for. Everybody in the world is seeking for their way.

Some of them are finding and some of them are not. He has infinite riches to give us. And that's why I asked to sing that song. "He giveth more grace when the burdens grow greater. He sendeth more strength when the labors increase. To added affliction, he addeth his mercies. To multiplied trials, his multiplied peace.

When we have exhausted our store of endurance, when our strength has failed ere the day is half done, when we reach the end of our hoarded resources, our Father's full giving is only begun. His love has no limit. His grace has no measure. His power no boundary known unto men. For out of his infinite riches in Jesus, he giveth and giveth and giveth again."

The Father's indescribable gift is the son who contains hidden within him—for God has hidden the treasures of heaven in his son—infinite grace, infinite mercy, infinite love. Nothing to do with finite grace, mercy, and love. Infinite. So how do you describe infinite love? How do you try with words to talk about eminence contained and immanence experienced?

It's impossible, but we must try to do it. How do we describe the son's incomparable love? Paul says, "I want you rooted and grounded in this love, that you may have power with all the saints to grasp, to understand how wide, how long, how high, how deep is this love. To know this love that surpasses knowledge."

This love I'm trying to get over to you and explain to you surpasses knowledge. It is so incredibly beyond anything. Can't you see how we're going to have to work at even grasping a little bit of it? How we're going to be that serious? This search we should every one of us be on has to take priority over everything else you're doing.

Even over soccer. It has to. And yet it doesn't. It fits nicely into our calendar, doesn't it? "This is the day I have a little think about the love of God and God's indescribable gift and Jesus' incomparable love." Jesus' incomparable love is demonstrated in his all-encompassing work. His love is wide enough to embrace everyone in the world.

His love is long enough to last and outlast all needs. His love is high enough to lift us to the throne of God. His love is deep enough to reach the most hardened person in the world. This is the love of Christ. And to know this love surpasses knowledge. To know it means we will be filled with all the fullness of God.

To know this love means we will be filled with all the fullness of God. We'll be able to understand it a little bit, and we'll be able to experience it. Paul says you'll be able to grasp it. You'll be able to figure it out. It will become the most incredibly precious treasure in your own life. You can be filled with this incomparable love of Jesus Christ.

How can you be filled with it? How can you be filled with the love of God? Well, let me give you another verse from Ephesians 3:17. "Now unto him who is able to do immeasurably more." You see how Christianity is a religion of superlatives? It's not measurable, yet I'm supposed to measure it and explain it to you.

"Unto him who is able to do immeasurably more than all you ask or imagine." Oh, no. Now just imagine everything you can. And he's able to do immeasurably more than anything you can imagine. How? By his power that works in us. What power? The power of the Spirit of God.

His love is shed abroad in our hearts by the Spirit. This incomparable love that I've been talking about and that the Bible talks about. So the Father's indescribable gift is the unsearchable riches of Christ in the shape of the son's incomparable love, given to us by the Spirit's unlimited power.

There we go again. The Spirit has unlimited power. The only thing that can limit the Spirit of God—and this is the most horrifying thing—is you and me. He gives the Spirit, John 3:34, without limit. That's what it says. Let's look at that passage just for a minute because I want to draw attention to something here.

John 3. John speaking about Jesus: "The one who God has sent speaks the words of God. To him God gives the Spirit without limit. The Father loves the son and has placed everything in his hands. Whoever believes in the son has eternal life. Whoever rejects the son won't see life, for God's wrath remains on him."

God gave the Spirit without limit to Jesus. When you receive Jesus, that's what you get: the Spirit without limit when you get Christ. There is no limit. Jesus said to his disciples one day, "You think this stuff's great? Greater things will you do because I'm going to the Father, and I'm going to send forth the Spirit. And I'm going to give you the Spirit without limit."

God is not a miserly God. He gives and gives and gives out of his infinite riches in Jesus. He doesn't give you a little bit of the Spirit. Spirit is a person. You can't receive a bit of a person. Hang on a bit until you get more spiritual, and then you receive a bit more. You receive all you're going to get when you come to Christ, are born again, receive the Spirit of God.

Then you discover the rest of your life who you have received, and you quit limiting him. But you have the Spirit without limit. So the sky is the limit as far as power to overcome habits, as far as power to witness, as far as ability to change, to get a handle on things that have got a handle on you. You have the Spirit without limit.

Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. You have this great Spirit. So the Father's indescribable gift is the unsearchable riches of Christ in the shape of the son's incomparable love given to us by the Spirit's unlimited power. And I can do immeasurably more than anything I can ask or think through the power of the Spirit of God.

Now, do we live like this? Does your life reflect this? That you have power beyond your own human powers? Strength beyond your own human strength? Wisdom beyond your own human wisdom? Knowledge beyond your human intelligence? Does your life reflect it? Then I would ask, are you sure you have received Christ by his Spirit?

Do you have the Spirit's unlimited power? God used the Spirit to raise Jesus from the dead, and he will use the Spirit to raise us from the dead. And that same Spirit, Paul says, lives in us for life, not just for death. I don't know if you've ever sat by a dead body or seen a dead body.

Have you ever wondered what power it's going to take to raise it? A dead body is so dead. It is so dead, dead, dead. Right? I remember looking at my mother's body, thinking, "What power on earth is it going to take to raise that body?" Well, Bible says that his Spirit will also quicken our mortal bodies, not only in the resurrection but in life.

Paul says, "Inwardly I'm being renewed day by day, by day, by day, by day." For he has given me the Spirit without limit. Not only to strengthen me out of his infinite riches in Jesus, when my strength is done at the day is half done and all that, out of his infinite riches in Jesus, he giveth and giveth and giveth again.

I tell you, as I've been running around the world literally, I have been saying, "Do it again, God. Do it again." Every moment, just "Do it again, do it again, do it again." And there's never an end to the do it again because he gives immeasurably more than we can ask or even think.

He enlightens you to see it all. He empowers you to tell it all. He enlightens you to see it all. He empowers you to tell it all. He empowers you to describe the indescribable, to search for the unsearchable, to calculate the uncalculable, and to proclaim the unimaginable. And I've given you all those verses right from the Scriptures.

What have we got to proclaim? Eternity's unimaginable blessings. And here's the last one. Life with the king in the coming kingdom is unimaginable, says the Bible. But we're supposed to imagine it. It's going to take work, spiritual work, to imagine the unimaginable. This is what Christianity is about.

It is the most exciting search, the most exciting employment that you could possibly sign up for. And incidentally, you did sign up for this when you came to Christ. "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him." But God has revealed it to us by his Spirit.

So now we've got to think about what no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived. Something God has prepared for us in the kingdom of God that is to come where he is King of King and Lord of Lord because God has revealed it to us by his Spirit. A little bit of it that we might grasp not only the depth and the breadth of the love of God but those things that God has prepared for us in heaven.

What is heaven like? Well, how can I tell you what heaven is like? But I'm supposed to try. It says it's unimaginable. I remember going to a hospital once and being invited to go through the birthing wing and then the hospice. And we were with a group of people. It was up in Green Bay, and I was to speak to the entire personnel of the hospice—the doctors and the nurses and the administrators and all these people—at the end of this tour.

So we get there, and we get to the hospital, and I said, "Oh, this is the birthing wing." And she looked at me as if, "What sort of speaker have we invited? She's a little strange." "No, no," she said. "We started at the birthing wing. This is the hospice." I said, "No, this is the birthing wing."

And then I was able to say to those 10 prominent people we were doing the tour with, "This is where people are birthed into heaven, you see. This is the birthing wing." And just as a baby in a womb has not a clue what is ahead, so you and I really have not a clue what happens at the moment of birth into life in heaven.

Do you think a baby in the womb has any conception of the smell and the taste and the feel and what it's like out there? No. They're shut up in this womb. And life now is like being shut up in this womb. It's very nice, very comfortable. We don't know anything else. But one day we'll be born into heaven, and then we'll see, and then we'll know.

Fix your eyes on the unseen. You ever tried to do that? Rather hard. Fix your eyes on the unseen, for there is a kingdom prepared for you. There is a kingdom. It's unimaginable. Eternity's unimaginable blessings are part of the unsearchable riches of Christ, made possible because of the indescribable gift of the Father and made known to us by the unlimited power of the Spirit.

I just pray that you've seen a glimpse of the pearl of greatest price. I wanted to lift Jesus up. Because if we lift Jesus up, people are drawn to him, you see. Pray with me. Lord, if you hadn't told us to seek to proclaim the unproclaimable, to describe the indescribable, I would certainly not have been up here trying to do it today.

But you gave us the Spirit's unlimited power to do the impossible. You said you'd take the ordinary and make them extraordinary. And we are very ordinary. And that's your promise. And I pray that people may have caught a glimpse of your translucent beauty, O pearl of greatest price.

And I pray there may be a hunger in our hearts to search, to search until we find, to make it an absolute priority in our lives to discover the height and depth and width and length of your love. To know the love of Christ that passes knowledge. May that be our intent, our promise today.

And then, Lord, help us proclaim the unproclaimable, eternity's unseen, unimaginable gifts and riches to sinful humanity made sinless by the blood of Christ. Lord, I think of that story, a fairy story really, of the gates that wouldn't open until a drop of blood was placed upon them, and then they swung open into the castle.

And, Lord, help us remember that the gates to this wonderful, incredibly rich experience will only swing open because of the blood that touched them, the life of Jesus given that we might explore and know and possess the inexhaustible riches of Jesus.

And, Lord, I would be remiss if I didn't give anybody an opportunity if they've never had it before to say, "Lord Jesus, I don't understand all this, but I've caught a glimpse. I've got a heart response. I'd like to know something of these spiritual things Jill's been talking about."

And I understand I start by receiving you, the Father's indescribable gift. And if anybody would like to do this, then just ask him to come into your life by his unlimited Spirit. Invite him in. Ask him to forgive you. Possess the pearl. Ask for the pearl to be buried in your life even now. Lord God, hear the language of our longing and answer our prayers, we pray. In Jesus' name. Amen.