Our Greatest Treasure

Matthew 5:30, Mark 8:36

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Have you ever noticed that during Jesus ministry there were times that he had extreme statements? For example, I’ll read one from Matthew, chapter five, verse 30. It says,

If your right hand causes you to fall into sin, cut it off and throw it away from you. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. (Matthew 5:30)

Now, Jesus did not intend for us to hurt ourselves. He wasn’t literally saying we needed to cut off our hand. Because again, if you take note of what he said, if your hand causes you to sin, well, your hand doesn’t cause you to sin. It’s your sinful heart and it’s the temptations of the devil. Now, if the devil is tempting you to put something, to put anything even as valuable as a hand between you and having Jesus as your Savior, then you need to let it go.

I’ll give you a story, sort of a modern day parable of a spiritual aspect. There was a man who loved finding treasure. One day he found a treasure map and he immediately hired a crew, got a boat, and he went off into the ocean in search of the treasure. And after many days following the map, they found this deserted island. They went on to it and they found the treasure. It was gold coins. It was worth millions of dollars. Elated, he had his crew load that gold back onto the boat and they began their return trip home

The next day. As he’s sitting on the deck, he’s looking through the coins and he put them all into a bag. And as he stood there, he doesn’t even realize there’s a large storm approaching. Suddenly there was a big wave that nearly tipped the boat over and off went the bag of gold into the water. Immediately he dove in to try to save the bag. And he did. He got it. But that bag of gold was very heavy. The crew threw him a lifeline and said, grab hold of it, but he wouldn’t let go of the gold. And so it took him under the water. How sad that a man was willing to hold on to even gold and lose his life.

Jesus gave a spiritual warning very similar to this, when he said,

What good is it for a man to gain the whole world and yet forfeit his soul? (Mark 8:36)

God has given us his word as the most important thing for our lives because it tells us of Jesus. It connects us to Him and his forgiveness and all that he offers us. Now, the story is not done about the man. You see, a crew member jumped into the water and pulled him out and saved his life, although the gold was lost. Jesus in a similar way, looked down upon us as we are struggling in our sin, in a sense, spiritually drowning in our sin. And so God sent Him into this world to rescue us. He took all of those sins, the weight of those sins on himself. It didn’t sink him to the bottom of the ocean. It took him to the cross where he carried the weight of all that sin until his death. But it was in that death that he won forgiveness of all our sins, that he set us free from all that would weigh us down in this world.

Of course, that’s not the end of Jesus’ story either. He rose from the dead. He showed that he has power to forgive sins and that he can give us eternal life in heaven. This is our greatest treasure. This is more valuable than anything else that we can have in the world. So as you’re tempted to think of other things being more important than Jesus and his word. Remember this story. Remember Jesus’ words. Hold on to Jesus by faith. Amen.