“The kingdom of heaven is like 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.” (Matthew 13:44, ESV)
Selling All You Have
There are many people who look on the Christian life from the outside and see it as a long list of “NOs.” Christians can’t do this and can’t do that. They hear the ten commandments, and the repeated refrain, “Thou shalt not…,” confirms their suspicions. Christians are people who don’t do things.
The church has a habit of perpetuating this mentality. Pastors and church leaders look at the world around them falling into moral decay—watching people continue to do things that are destroying their lives—and they keep saying, “You need to stop doing that!” They’re right. It’s not good for people to continue living in sin.
Then there’s Jesus’ message to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 9:23, ESV). In a world full of people who refuse to deny themselves much, we need to be calling people to deny themselves and follow Christ. Another way of saying this, that fits with the parable at the top of this post is: we need to be calling people to sell everything they have and follow Christ.
In His Joy
Yet, the part of this message that is often missing is “…in his joy he goes and sells all that he has…” (Matthew 13:44, ESV). To connect this with Jesus’ comment about self-denial, we could rephrase what he said about self-denial by saying, “If anyone would come after me, let him joyfully deny himself and joyfully take up his cross daily and follow me.” There is a true joy that comes in living the Christian life—selling everything we have, deny ourselves, taking up our crosses and following Jesus. We do these things joyfully.
Joyfully Finding Treasure
In the parable, the man joyfully sells everything he has because he has found a greater treasure. He found something so valuable nothing else mattered anymore. He will give up everything else to have that treasure.
The same goes toward the ideas of self-denial and the “Thou shalt nots” of the Bible. We deny ourselves certain things because they are destructive and take away from the greater treasure we have found. We don’t do certain things because they lead us away from the life God has created us to live.
Joyful Christian Living
When we understand that the Christian life is about finding a greater treasure than the world has to offer, we should finally realize that we can joyfully deny ourselves certain things. The Christian life isn’t about gritting our teeth and grumbling as we don’t do things we want to do. That’s not joyful, and it’s not the Christian life. The Christian life is joyfully saying “No” to things that will destroy us and take away from our treasure and saying “Yes” to things that will give us life and add to our treasure. It’s not about self-denial for self-denial’s sake. It’s about self-denial for the sake of joy and treasure and the glory of God.