# Jesus and the American Dream

Sermon transcript from Cross Church Surprise.
Series: Parables
Date: July 5, 2026
Watch: https://crosschurchcares.com/surprise/episodes/jesus-and-the-american-dream

## Summary

Is the American Dream truly compatible with following Jesus? What if the treasure we seek isn't found in success, but in surrender? Join us as we explore the joy of discovering Christ and the cost of true discipleship. Let's dive in together!

## Transcript

0:00 · When was the last time that following Jesus

0:05 · was nothing but joyful?

0:07 · When did you look at that treasure

0:09 · and just marvel at it with joy and be like, I get to do this?

0:13 · Because sometimes you're like, man, you tithed,

0:16 · and it came out automatically.

0:17 · You're banked out.

0:18 · You're like, ah, church again.

0:19 · I had to give up that sin.

0:21 · I had to give up drinking.

0:22 · I had to give up lusting.

0:24 · I had to give up this.

0:26 · And sometimes, if we're honest,

0:27 · we can be grumpy Christians.

0:30 · I can't do this.

0:31 · I can't watch that.

0:32 · I can't go there.

0:34 · When was the last time you just looked

0:35 · at the treasure of Jesus Christ and just marveled with joy

0:37 · that I get to follow the God of the entire universe?

0:48 · But yesterday and throughout this weekend,

0:51 · we've got to celebrate the 250th anniversary

0:53 · of this country, America, that we live in.

0:56 · And it has been a great time as we get to reflect

0:59 · on a country that was started with a dream,

1:02 · a dream that no matter what background you're from,

1:06 · that if you work hard enough, if you sacrifice,

1:09 · if you push, that you can make a better future.

1:12 · You can build a home.

1:13 · You can create something better for your kids.

1:17 · And hear me off the top, that is a great dream.

1:21 · And it is a good dream that has lifted

1:23 · over these past 250 years,

1:25 · millions out of poverty.

1:27 · It has changed families, shaped generations.

1:31 · And it is great that we have the freedom

1:34 · in the exercise to gather together in a church

1:37 · to proclaim our faith and see how God works.

1:41 · And today, as we dive into our text,

1:44 · let me tell you, we are gonna celebrate that dream.

1:46 · And I am not here to dunk on that dream.

1:48 · I promise you that.

1:49 · I love his dream so much that before I got married,

1:53 · my room had four framed pictures

1:56 · of the Constitution on my wall, okay?

1:59 · I got married and I tried to bring them

2:01 · into our first apartment and my wife said,

2:03 · what are you doing?

2:05 · I was like, this is gonna go in our living room,

2:06 · right over our couch.

2:07 · She's like, and ever since then,

2:10 · she has not allowed me to put anything

2:11 · on any of our walls.

2:12 · I wonder why.

2:13 · But I love this dream.

2:15 · It is great, but here is the tension question

2:19 · that we are gonna ask this morning.

2:21 · Is the American dream compatible with following Jesus?

2:29 · Oh, it's gonna get awkward.

2:32 · But this is a question many of us,

2:34 · I don't think we've asked before.

2:36 · And as we get to celebrate this weekend,

2:39 · as we should be proud of the citizenship we have,

2:43 · proud of the opportunity that we are placed

2:46 · in this temporary home, as we parade through,

2:48 · today we're gonna reflect on, though,

2:51 · how do we make sure we can be a good American,

2:55 · but that we can also be a great Christian

2:57 · in following Christ?

2:59 · And the passage we get to look at this through

3:02 · is gonna be in Matthew chapter 13.

3:04 · Matthew chapter 13 and verse 44.

3:06 · If you have your Bibles, I encourage you to flip there.

3:09 · And we're gonna look at three verses today,

3:12 · three short verses, and as we continue on

3:15 · in this series, the parables,

3:18 · where Jesus started in the beginning of this chapter,

3:20 · where He set along a sea with a crowd

3:24 · swarming around Him, and He began to just teach.

3:28 · And as Jesus taught, one of Jesus' favorite ways

3:30 · to teach was through the parable,

3:33 · these short stories that just unlock this heavenly truth.

3:39 · And so far, we've seen these stories of farmers

3:43 · and soils and seed being scattered.

3:46 · And as He continues down this path,

3:50 · buried in the middle of all those stories,

3:53 · pun fully intended, farmers, buried, soil,

3:55 · all right, you'll get there.

3:59 · But in verse 44 through 46,

4:02 · we see two of the shortest parables ever told.

4:06 · Three verses blink and you miss them,

4:08 · but filled with so much truth.

4:12 · And we start here in verse 44,

4:13 · and I want us to read this together.

4:15 · It says this, that the kingdom of heaven

4:17 · is like treasure, buried in a field

4:20 · that a man founds and reburied.

4:23 · Then in his joy he goes and he sells everything he has

4:25 · and he buys that field.

4:29 · Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant

4:33 · in search of fine pearls.

4:35 · When he found one priceless pearl,

4:38 · he went and sold everything he had and he bought it.

4:43 · Let us pray for our time diving into God's word.

4:47 · Lord, we thank you.

4:48 · God, we thank you that you are so great,

4:50 · that you are so good.

4:52 · Lord, as we dive into your word,

4:54 · God, open up our hearts.

4:55 · Let us receive the truth that you have for us.

4:58 · Lord, that maybe we can follow you for the first time,

5:01 · or we can follow you more deeply in this walk

5:04 · that we have been taking for years.

5:08 · And Lord, let this not just return empty and void,

5:11 · but let us put into practice what you have for us.

5:15 · God, thank you for all that you have gathered here

5:19 · and online and thank you that your spirit

5:21 · is moving in our lives.

5:23 · And we lift all this up in Jesus' name, amen.

5:28 · Two tiny stories.

5:31 · First, a farm hand who trips over buried treasure.

5:37 · Second, a jeweler who finds the pearl of a lifetime.

5:43 · And both of them do the exact same shocking thing.

5:46 · When they find this treasure,

5:48 · they sell everything they own to get it.

5:51 · And here is what I want us to see today

5:53 · that the structure of these two little parables

5:56 · is actually the same structure of the American dream

5:59 · that we have seen play out for 250 years.

6:03 · You see, every dream begins with a discovery.

6:05 · Every dream demands a death.

6:07 · Every dream then ends with a dwelling.

6:11 · The question is never will you chase a dream?

6:15 · You are chasing a dream even if you don't realize it.

6:20 · The question is which treasure is your dream chasing?

6:26 · And I want us to take some time

6:27 · to walk through it today and here's where we begin

6:30 · is that every dream we chase begins with a discovery.

6:34 · Every dream begins with a discovery.

6:37 · I love as this passage is setting up

6:39 · and as Jesus has been telling them different truths

6:43 · of the kingdom of heaven and what it is like

6:45 · to follow him, he then leans into this in verse 44

6:48 · and he says the kingdom of heaven is like treasure

6:52 · buried in a field that a man found.

6:57 · You have to understand the world Jesus is talking to

7:01 · to fully unpack this story.

7:04 · That back in first century AD Roman world

7:07 · is they did not have banks like we have today.

7:10 · Like you didn't go to the bank and put your money in.

7:14 · Some people didn't know there was physical banks

7:16 · to put your money in, right?

7:17 · You're like isn't that all online and virtual

7:19 · and you just like do it

7:20 · and I don't even see real money anymore.

7:22 · But it's like you didn't have a safe place

7:25 · to put your money.

7:26 · So when you had treasures and you had gold

7:29 · and you had priceless objects,

7:30 · your land that you own, you would dig a hole,

7:34 · you would bury it and then you would cover it.

7:37 · And the purpose for that is because in this world

7:39 · it was constantly unstable.

7:41 · People, sometimes armies would pass through

7:43 · and as armies would pass through,

7:45 · commentators say it wasn't uncommon

7:47 · where all of a sudden when that army passed through

7:49 · maybe the owner would get killed,

7:51 · the owner would get captured and carried off

7:54 · or they just went missing

7:55 · or they forgot the treasure they buried

7:58 · because they became old and like lost their mind.

8:00 · They had no idea where it was.

8:02 · So these treasures would sit in this field,

8:06 · sometimes forgotten and pushed aside

8:11 · until a field somebody else was now plowing.

8:15 · It makes me think of my son Arlo, my youngest son.

8:19 · Archie, my older son, he's eight years old

8:21 · and he's gonna be an engineer.

8:23 · I can see it in him.

8:24 · He's a smart kid, like great at school.

8:26 · He just got a very like analytical math brain.

8:30 · Arlo's four years old.

8:31 · He likes to run into walls all the time.

8:36 · He's my crazy kid.

8:38 · Like Archie's an engineer.

8:40 · Arlo, if you know a job

8:42 · that's good at running through walls,

8:43 · maybe construction, right?

8:44 · He'll do something like that.

8:46 · But Arlo is in this stage

8:47 · where he has this little green treasure chest

8:50 · that's like plastic and he likes to store

8:52 · his treasures in there and like put little keepsakes.

8:55 · He calls them like his precious little treasure things.

8:58 · I call them crap that needs to go in the trash can.

9:01 · But we disagree on that.

9:02 · But he like puts them in there

9:03 · and then he hides that little treasure chest

9:05 · around his room.

9:07 · And I know sometimes he forgets about it

9:09 · or he's like, where did I put it?

9:10 · I'm like, I don't know, dude.

9:11 · This is your room.

9:12 · Like you need to keep track of it.

9:14 · But every now and then he like rediscovers it

9:16 · because he forgot where he put it

9:17 · and he's all excited again

9:18 · because it's like new treasure

9:19 · that he didn't know existed

9:21 · but it's been in his room

9:22 · with all his other toys the entire time.

9:25 · And here in this parable,

9:27 · just picture this man.

9:30 · He is not a treasure hunter.

9:32 · He is a hired hand working a field that isn't his.

9:36 · He's working on an ordinary day

9:38 · in the middle of the week

9:39 · and as he is plowing this field,

9:42 · his plow catches something.

9:44 · So he starts digging.

9:46 · And as he's digging,

9:48 · all of a sudden his heart stops

9:51 · because down in the dirt of an ordinary field

9:54 · is a fortune he did nothing to earn

9:57 · and never expected to find.

9:59 · And this is a discovery

10:01 · that we see in this passage.

10:04 · And here's the thing about it

10:05 · that I love that it shows us

10:07 · is discovery produces joy.

10:09 · Keep going in verse 44.

10:10 · It says after he found it

10:12 · and he re-buries it,

10:13 · it says, then in his joy.

10:18 · Then in his joy,

10:20 · this is not a sober spreadsheet decision.

10:24 · This man has stumbled onto something

10:25 · that is so valuable

10:27 · that the only fitting response is to burst with joy

10:32 · and then we're gonna see the action he takes

10:33 · in just a second.

10:35 · We have actually understood

10:37 · this same concept of discovery

10:39 · throughout America's 250 year history.

10:43 · In 1848, James Marshall was building a sawmill

10:46 · on the American River in California

10:48 · when he saw something glinting in the water.

10:52 · Anyone know what that something was?

10:54 · Gold!

10:55 · You guys are great historians, all right?

10:57 · I'm very proud of you.

10:59 · And he found gold

11:00 · and he tried to keep it quiet,

11:03 · but he couldn't.

11:04 · And within a year,

11:06 · the largest migration in American history was underway.

11:11 · It says about 300,000 people moved west.

11:16 · Those people throughout history are called 49ers.

11:20 · Many of you are like, that's where the team comes from.

11:22 · I didn't know that

11:23 · because I know the 49ers is a football team

11:25 · and as a Cardinals fan,

11:26 · I have a lot of derogatory terms

11:27 · for the 49ers and their fan base.

11:31 · But as they discovered this gold,

11:34 · they're like, we gotta go get it.

11:36 · And there was joy that led them west.

11:39 · And you see, that is what discovery does.

11:40 · The moment you are convinced the treasure is real,

11:43 · everything else loses its grip on you.

11:46 · Now watch what Jesus does

11:47 · because first he tells not one parable,

11:50 · but he tells two.

11:52 · And he first tells this man

11:53 · who accidentally stumbles upon treasure

11:56 · who was not looking for anything.

11:57 · But verse 45 gives us a slightly different version of this.

12:01 · In verse 45, it tells us,

12:04 · it says again, the kingdom of heaven is like this,

12:06 · but then he says,

12:07 · a merchant in search of fine pearls.

12:12 · You see, this is the opposite, man.

12:15 · This is a professional who is hunting his entire career.

12:20 · And the beauty of the two stories side by side

12:23 · is there is one man

12:24 · who stumbles onto the kingdom of God by accident,

12:27 · the other spends his entire whole life searching for it,

12:30 · but both of them end up on their knees

12:33 · in front of the very same treasure.

12:37 · And church, that is both of you in this room.

12:42 · Some of you have found Jesus, not on purpose,

12:45 · but by going through life

12:47 · and running into wall after wall after wall

12:50 · of life has kicked you and life has hit you

12:53 · and you have stumbled and fell

12:54 · and somehow you have found yourself on your knees

12:57 · in front of Jesus who changes everything.

13:01 · But some of you, maybe you've searched your whole life,

13:04 · even searching through religion and philosophy

13:07 · and every self-help book on the aisle.

13:10 · And finally, after searching all the counterfeits

13:14 · and searching all the stuff that leaves you empty,

13:17 · you have found the real thing,

13:18 · but here's what's beautiful,

13:20 · it does not matter which you are.

13:22 · The kingdom of heaven is a discovery

13:24 · worth stopping your whole life for.

13:29 · You see in this first part of this parable,

13:32 · we see that every dream begins with a discovery,

13:35 · but a discovery is only the beginning

13:38 · because the second the treasure becomes real to you,

13:40 · it begins to cost you.

13:43 · And the next thing we see

13:44 · is that every dream demands a death.

13:48 · The discovery of that dream is great,

13:50 · but very quickly it moves

13:52 · and every dream demands a death in this account.

13:56 · Keep reading in verse 44.

13:58 · It says that as he finds it

14:00 · and he has this joy go through him.

14:03 · In his joy, what does he do?

14:04 · He goes and he sells everything.

14:08 · In his joy, he goes and sells everything.

14:11 · Skip down to verse 46,

14:13 · it says when he found the one priceless pearl,

14:15 · what did he do?

14:16 · He went and sold everything he had.

14:22 · We can't rush past the one word

14:24 · that I think Jesus used very intently

14:27 · in both of these stories,

14:28 · which is everything.

14:31 · Doesn't say they sold some of it,

14:32 · doesn't say he tied it,

14:34 · doesn't say it was a spare change,

14:35 · that was in the cup holder.

14:36 · It says he liquidates his entire life,

14:40 · the house, the savings, the livestock,

14:42 · the heirlooms and pours it all

14:44 · into this one field containing this one treasure.

14:49 · You see by every reasonable measure,

14:51 · this man looks like he has lost his mind,

14:53 · but the commentators put it perfectly in this passage.

14:56 · They say he was not crazy,

14:57 · he was actually wise and he was happy

15:00 · because he knew he had found something

15:04 · worth losing everything else for.

15:08 · Here is the gospel logic,

15:10 · hiding inside this little story,

15:12 · the man does not sell everything

15:14 · because he hates what he owns.

15:17 · He sells everything because he found something

15:20 · that is worth more than all of his

15:23 · other possessions combined.

15:25 · That is not the misery of giving something up,

15:28 · this is the math of an obvious upgrade.

15:32 · Go back to the 49ers,

15:33 · not the terrible football team,

15:35 · but the historical ones.

15:37 · When the 49ers heard about the gold,

15:40 · the stories of them are crazy.

15:43 · It says farmers, as soon as they heard about it,

15:45 · they walked off their farms,

15:47 · they grabbed their families,

15:48 · they packed everything they had and said we're going.

15:50 · Cattle can feed themselves, good luck,

15:51 · we're going, we're finding gold.

15:53 · They said sailors, some of you are sailors here,

15:55 · maybe you were on Lake Pleasant watching fireworks

15:58 · and you got off like 10 minutes ago

16:00 · after all the drunk guys finally got off the lake,

16:03 · and some of the sailors that had their ships,

16:06 · they just left them in the harbor

16:07 · and started going west.

16:10 · Men sold everything for a wagon, a shovel,

16:12 · and a chance at something that was of such greater value

16:17 · than what they had.

16:19 · And we see this play out through scripture,

16:21 · Paul says it like this in Philippians 3, 8,

16:23 · he says I also consider everything to be a loss

16:27 · in view of the surpassing value

16:31 · of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

16:36 · Paul says when I compare the rest of my life to Jesus,

16:40 · he's like it's a loss.

16:42 · Other translations say it's filth.

16:44 · It is nothing, it is worthless

16:47 · because Christ is so much more.

16:48 · He says when I compare my life to who Jesus is

16:51 · and what Jesus has for me and following him,

16:53 · he said there is no comparison

16:55 · because Jesus is so much greater.

16:58 · Now I called this point a death and I meant it

17:01 · because following Jesus will cost you a death.

17:04 · Jesus never hid that,

17:05 · he said if anyone wants to follow him,

17:07 · he must deny himself, he must take up his cross

17:10 · and he must die the life he was building for himself,

17:14 · die his life to sin.

17:16 · And let me be honest with a room like ours,

17:19 · this is the hardest sell when we compare this

17:23 · against the other dreams, the American dreams

17:25 · and the dreams we have for our life

17:27 · because here's some of the problem

17:28 · I think our world has turned into

17:30 · is maybe the American dream started as hey,

17:33 · if you work hard enough,

17:34 · you can start in humble beginnings

17:35 · and you can make a life for you

17:37 · but somewhere along the way in our world today,

17:40 · some of it has become where it's just me, me, me,

17:43 · I need to accumulate, I need to get,

17:45 · I need to add, I need to climb,

17:46 · I need to acquire, I need to hold on tighter,

17:48 · I need to worry about me and no more

17:52 · but Jesus walks into the middle of that striving,

17:56 · that selfish outlook and says to gain what I am offering,

18:01 · you have to open the hand

18:03 · that you have clenched around everything else

18:07 · and here's the deal, not everyone can do it.

18:11 · Just one chapter before the verse,

18:13 · we will land on this morning in Mark chapter 10,

18:16 · before that chapter, there's a man

18:18 · that comes running to Jesus

18:20 · and this man is described as rich, young and religious.

18:24 · He is the picture of someone who had won at life.

18:26 · I tried to contact his great descendants

18:29 · during our Let's Go campaign and I couldn't find him

18:32 · but I knew he was a rich young ruler,

18:33 · I was like maybe he buried his treasure

18:34 · that we can find and start more churches with

18:36 · but as it talks about this man,

18:39 · he comes up to Jesus and he asks him,

18:43 · teacher, how can I inherit eternal life?

18:46 · And Jesus gives him a quick answer,

18:47 · he's like if you want to inherit eternal life,

18:50 · he says go, Jesus knew his heart,

18:52 · he says go, sell what you have and follow me

18:59 · and Mark tells us the man's face fell

19:03 · and he walked away and it says grieving

19:06 · because he had great possessions.

19:09 · Now you set that rich young ruler aside

19:12 · from the man in the parable,

19:14 · you set these two men side by side,

19:16 · the man in the field sold everything he had

19:18 · and it describes it with joy

19:22 · but the rich young ruler couldn't sell anything

19:25 · and he walked away with grief.

19:28 · Same transaction, opposite response

19:32 · and the only difference was whether they believed

19:34 · the treasure was truly worth it.

19:37 · You see this is the death, this point is about,

19:41 · Jesus is not trying to take your life away,

19:44 · Jesus wants you to die to your sin,

19:46 · Jesus wants you to stop white-knuckling

19:48 · your way through life that is never going to satisfy you,

19:51 · stop hoarding onto things, your sin and your wealth

19:54 · and your possessions that will not fill the gap

19:57 · in your heart, he wants your hands to finally be free

20:02 · to hold the one thing that truly matters.

20:06 · And here's the deal, this looks different for all of us

20:10 · and maybe you have a story that you have had to die

20:13 · to something in order to give your life fully to Christ.

20:18 · There's a great example of this

20:19 · and we have so many stories in our church

20:21 · but a recent one is Lyle and Heather Harenstein,

20:25 · some of you might know this amazing family and couple,

20:28 · they used to attend here at Cross Church Surprise

20:32 · and Lyle started as just an attender,

20:34 · then he became a member,

20:36 · he started serving in different areas,

20:38 · then became a Bible group leader

20:39 · and him and Heather were involved in so much,

20:41 · finally became an elder and Pastor Jackie kept saying

20:45 · and he's like, I think you're called in a ministry

20:47 · and Lyle's like, I don't agree, nope, pass on.

20:51 · Lyle's like, I got a plan,

20:52 · Lyle had been working at a carpet store

20:54 · managing it for 15, 20 years

20:57 · and he had every plan to buy out the owner,

21:00 · to own that, that be his retirement,

21:02 · that be his dream to leave something for his kids

21:05 · and what he had, he's like, this is the path I'm on.

21:09 · But God kept prodding his hearts.

21:11 · When we started Cross Church El Mirage,

21:13 · Lyle went over there and was one of the right-hand

21:15 · leader, Lyle and Heather in helping lead that

21:19 · and get it off the ground and grow it

21:20 · and now Lyle and Heather in this past year

21:24 · have moved up to Mayor, Arizona,

21:26 · some of you don't even know where that is, all right,

21:28 · it's at a Prescott in that Cordes Junction lane,

21:31 · they don't have a target near as close as we do here,

21:34 · but they're living in Mayor, Arizona and this fall,

21:36 · they're gonna be launching Cross Church Mayor.

21:40 · God, can we give God some glory for that?

21:46 · But what I love about Lyle and Heather's story

21:51 · is they were faithful to how God called,

21:54 · it meant a dream dying in their life

21:57 · that they held so closely,

21:59 · but they saw something greater in Christ

22:02 · in his plan for them that as they let go,

22:06 · God was showing them there's something more out there.

22:09 · You see, every dream demands a death,

22:12 · but here is the good news,

22:13 · this parable refuses to leave out,

22:15 · the death is never the end of the story,

22:17 · the death is how you get to the dwelling

22:19 · and we see here that every dream ends in a dwelling.

22:24 · You see, as this story continues, there's this discovery,

22:28 · there's this death and this sacrifice

22:30 · of pushing things aside and saying no to it,

22:34 · but then look at how verse 44 ends at the tail end of it.

22:40 · In his joy, as he sells everything he has

22:42 · that we covered, and what does he do?

22:45 · And he buys that fields.

22:49 · We see the same thing in 46,

22:52 · that as he finds the priceless pearl,

22:54 · as he went and sold everything, it says what?

22:55 · And he bought it.

23:00 · The story does not close on discovery,

23:02 · it does not even close on the sacrifice that is made,

23:05 · it closes on the acquisition.

23:08 · He owns the treasure now, the field is his,

23:10 · the pearl is his, his name is on the deed.

23:15 · And church, this is exactly where

23:16 · the American dream closes too.

23:18 · Discovery and sacrifice are only ever

23:20 · the middle of the story.

23:22 · The dream ends with keys in your hands

23:25 · in a place that is finally yours,

23:27 · a home, a patch of ground, something with your name on it

23:32 · into a room full of homeowners and home dreamers

23:37 · and Gen Zers, which I'm sorry you'll never own a home

23:39 · unless your parent dies and gives one to you,

23:42 · but don't be depressed, Jesus still loves you,

23:44 · I don't know what else to tell you but that.

23:47 · But we have moved out here

23:49 · to the West Valley to build something.

23:50 · Many of you have moved from California

23:52 · and Oregon and Washington to escape out there

23:55 · and come down here to build something for you

23:58 · and hear me, that ache for something to build

24:01 · for you and for the generations to come,

24:04 · that is a good thing because that is an ache

24:06 · that God gives us in our hearts.

24:10 · C.S. Lewis said it the best,

24:12 · he said we are never born with a desire

24:14 · unless something exists that can satisfy it.

24:18 · He says a baby gets hungry,

24:19 · there is such thing as food.

24:20 · A duckling wants to swim,

24:22 · there is such thing as water.

24:23 · So I find myself in a desire

24:25 · that nothing in this world can fill.

24:28 · The likeliest explanation is not that I am broken,

24:31 · it is that I was made for another world.

24:35 · The longing for home is real.

24:39 · The white picket fence of the American dream

24:42 · was never a lie.

24:45 · It was simply a signpost

24:47 · pointing to something so much bigger.

24:51 · You go back into history of our country,

24:55 · in 1862, Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act,

25:00 · which I say we bring back if we could find some land.

25:03 · Let's just like, can we go and colonize other places?

25:06 · Should cut that out, let's check that out, okay.

25:09 · But maybe the purest picture

25:10 · of the American dream we have ever had,

25:13 · this was the deal,

25:14 · is the government would give you 160 acres

25:19 · for practically nothing,

25:21 · like it was chump change you had to give to it.

25:24 · But there is one condition,

25:26 · you had to go live on that land.

25:30 · So leaving nearly everything back east,

25:33 · you had to load a wagon,

25:34 · you had to travel into the hard, empty country,

25:37 · you had to build a dwelling there,

25:39 · work that field for five years.

25:42 · And then, only after the death of the old life

25:45 · in the building of a new home,

25:48 · did the title become yours.

25:51 · They called this process proving up,

25:55 · and hundreds of thousands of families

25:57 · sold all they had to buy a field

26:00 · so they could build a place

26:02 · to dwell for generations to come.

26:05 · What's crazy about that is honestly,

26:07 · it is this parable in American boots.

26:09 · It is the same process of discovery

26:12 · and death and dwelling.

26:14 · But here's the truth about dwelling in the American dream,

26:21 · every dwelling it can sell us.

26:25 · As you drive through our neighborhoods today,

26:28 · in Surprise, in Sunsea, Grand Festival,

26:32 · Maine, whatever you wanna plug in there,

26:35 · in Peoria, that as you drive through our neighborhoods,

26:41 · almost all houses out there have had a before family,

26:45 · and every single one of those lands

26:46 · has had a before owner.

26:49 · I'm on a new street in North Surprise.

26:52 · It has just finished our street less than a year ago,

26:54 · and we are the first house on that street.

26:56 · We've been there less than two years.

26:58 · I already have a second neighbor in the same house.

27:03 · And here's the deal,

27:04 · is throughout this last 250 years,

27:06 · the homestead got proved up,

27:08 · but then it got sold, or foreclosed, or passed down,

27:12 · and somebody else moved in.

27:14 · The deed outlives the owner.

27:15 · The owner never outlives the deed.

27:18 · Every home the American dream can give you

27:20 · is a home you will eventually move out of.

27:24 · And even if you live your whole life there

27:26 · at the very end of it, you will still leave it.

27:29 · Even if you are buried in your home,

27:30 · which is creepy, by the way,

27:32 · you still, your soul is gone.

27:36 · So watch what Jesus does with this word dwelling here.

27:41 · This thing to own and call mine.

27:45 · As we continue on in the Gospels

27:47 · on the night before the cross,

27:50 · when Jesus is getting ready to give his life

27:52 · to be hung on a cross to die for our sins,

27:55 · he gathers his disciples around,

27:57 · and he says, in my father's house are many rooms.

28:01 · He's like, guys, this isn't gonna be the end.

28:03 · You're gonna go home depressed,

28:04 · and the next day, but guess what?

28:07 · There's something more coming.

28:08 · He says, I am going, and he tells them,

28:10 · what is he going to do to prepare a place for you?

28:16 · Jesus said, I'm preparing a place, a room, a home,

28:19 · being built for you right now

28:21 · by the Son of God, Jesus himself.

28:24 · In the very last picture in the entire Bible

28:26 · is not us finally getting the house we always wanted.

28:30 · It's not building that dream home

28:31 · where you get to pick out the kitchen appliances,

28:33 · and you get to pick out the granite,

28:35 · and pick out the floor, and do all that fun stuff,

28:37 · because that's not actually fun.

28:38 · It's a nightmare when you do it, right?

28:40 · It's none of that.

28:41 · Instead, the picture we see is so much better than that.

28:44 · In Revelation 21-3, it says, look, look.

28:50 · God's dwelling where he's home is with humanity,

28:56 · and he will live with them.

29:00 · Do you hear that flip?

29:02 · In the American dream, you get your name on the deed.

29:06 · That's a good thing, but in the kingdom of heaven,

29:10 · you get God's name over the door,

29:14 · and God himself moves in with you forever.

29:17 · Church, that is a great thing.

29:21 · And here is the gospel turn

29:24 · that we cannot miss in this parable

29:26 · is the man sells everything to buy the fields

29:30 · bought on a hill outside Jerusalem.

29:33 · The roles get reversed.

29:35 · You see, Jesus is the one who sold everything,

29:38 · who forsake his throne in heaven to come down to earth,

29:43 · to live among us, to slum it with us sinners.

29:46 · He is the one who lived a perfect life

29:48 · who was side by side with us,

29:51 · who walked to the cross a path we could not take

29:54 · to die a death with our sins that we could not die

29:57 · because we are unworthy.

29:58 · And as he took the sins of the world

30:00 · on himself as he died, he paid the price for the field

30:04 · that we could not pay by his blood.

30:07 · And when he raised from the grave,

30:09 · here is the good news, he got the treasure.

30:13 · The treasure is you because he loves you,

30:17 · because he pursues you, because he wants you.

30:21 · He gave up his heavenly throne

30:24 · to come here to bring you to himself.

30:29 · And here's the great thing,

30:31 · the dwelling we end up in because of this,

30:36 · guys, it's so much better than anything

30:37 · we'll ever experience here.

30:40 · It is paid in full and it endures for eternity

30:45 · because the God of the universe has made us his.

30:53 · You see, the door is standing open

30:55 · and the voice on the other side is saying, welcome home.

31:01 · And you see this passage today,

31:03 · it leads us to this foundational parabolic truth

31:07 · that we need to see today

31:09 · is following Jesus doesn't cost you the dream.

31:14 · You can pursue the American dream,

31:16 · you can pursue the dreams of your career,

31:18 · you can pursue those dreams,

31:20 · but here's what you need to know,

31:23 · is following Jesus, it just gives you the treasure

31:28 · that the dream never could.

31:31 · There's a lot of good things we can pursue in our world

31:34 · and we celebrate a country

31:35 · that has been pursuing good things for 250 years,

31:41 · but only Jesus Christ can give us the treasure

31:46 · of the dream that none of that compares to.

31:51 · So let's pull this all together

31:53 · and see where this dream, how it unfolds

31:56 · and what it looks like.

31:58 · Turn with me one last time to Mark chapter 10 verse 29,

32:01 · Mark 10 verse 29,

32:02 · and I love just these couple of verses we see in here.

32:07 · As Jesus is, he's seen Peter had just watched

32:11 · the rich young ruler walk away sad and grieving,

32:14 · and Peter basically says to Jesus,

32:16 · like Lord, we actually did what you asked us to do,

32:18 · we sold everything we had

32:19 · and we started following you,

32:20 · we left everything to follow you.

32:23 · And listen to what Jesus says back in verse 29,

32:26 · he says, truly I tell you,

32:29 · he said, there is no one who has left house or brother

32:32 · or sisters or mother or father or children or fields

32:36 · for my sake and for the gospel, who will not?

32:40 · He's like, you guys have sacrificed a lot.

32:42 · But he's like, all that stuff you've given up,

32:45 · hear this part, all that stuff,

32:48 · none of you who will not receive a hundred times more,

32:53 · now at this time,

32:55 · you will receive houses and brothers and sisters

32:58 · and mothers and children and fields with persecutions.

33:01 · I like how he just throws that in there.

33:02 · By the way, you're gonna be persecuted a little bit

33:04 · as you get all these things, it's gonna be great.

33:07 · But it all leads to this,

33:09 · an eternal life in the age to come.

33:14 · This isn't a prosperity gospel sermon that says,

33:17 · hey, you follow Jesus and all of a sudden

33:18 · you get a new car in your driveway.

33:20 · He could do that, he has not done it for me.

33:22 · So if you have that line, let me know how you did it.

33:25 · But what he's saying is that whatever we give up,

33:29 · Jesus gives us more.

33:32 · That Jesus is saying, when we not follow him,

33:33 · it will cost you.

33:35 · He's not saying like, hey, it's gonna be so hard,

33:37 · just grit your teeth and push through it,

33:39 · it's gonna be miserable, you're gonna hate it,

33:41 · but you'll survive.

33:43 · He's saying the opposite of that.

33:45 · He said, you can't out-give me.

33:46 · Whatever you let go of to follow me,

33:48 · he hands back a hundredfold, some now and forever.

33:52 · Maybe not in the way we see it, but in joy

33:55 · and in passion and in fulfillment and satisfaction.

33:59 · John Piper said it this way,

34:01 · that whatever you give up in loss,

34:03 · Christ himself makes up for every loss.

34:07 · We give up the at-home feeling of your own house

34:11 · and you get back the security

34:13 · of knowing your Lord owns every house and acre and cattle

34:17 · and stream for a thousand fields,

34:20 · every single thing in this planet

34:21 · and the universe around us.

34:25 · When we follow Jesus, it's not about costing us something.

34:30 · It's about that we get to follow the God of the universe.

34:38 · There was a missionary named Hudson Taylor

34:42 · who gave up 50 years of his life

34:45 · to ministering to the country of China.

34:49 · In his time, he buried his wife, his children

34:55 · and all those he held dear on the mission fields.

34:59 · He gave up comfort and safety.

35:03 · His reputation, even gave up his home.

35:07 · Everything the dream tells you to chase

35:11 · and hold onto in our world today.

35:15 · But at the end of those 50 years,

35:17 · people kept calling him a man who sacrificed so much

35:21 · and finally he was tired of hearing it

35:23 · and his response to that was, I never made a sacrifice.

35:32 · You see, 50 years, and he says he never gave up

35:35 · a single thing because when you have the treasure,

35:42 · you stop counting the fields you sold to get it.

35:46 · You just keep looking at the treasure

35:49 · marvelling with joy that you get to have this.

35:56 · That is the truth this whole message has been driving at

36:02 · that following Jesus, it doesn't cost you the dream.

36:06 · It gives you the treasure that no other dream

36:10 · in our world ever could.

36:15 · The American dream, it is a good gift

36:21 · but it was only ever a signpost,

36:27 · a shadow of what God has for us.

36:32 · Jesus is not a threat to your dream, church.

36:35 · He is the treasure your dream has been longing for

36:40 · the whole time.

36:44 · So here's where I think this needs to land for us today.

36:49 · If you're a follower of Christ,

36:53 · you said, I have sacrificed for him,

36:54 · I've given things up, I've said no to things

36:57 · and I've said, I follow Jesus.

37:00 · I want you to meditate on this question.

37:05 · When was the last time that following Jesus

37:11 · was nothing but joyful?

37:15 · When did you look at that treasure

37:18 · and just marvel at it with joy and be like,

37:20 · I get to do this.

37:22 · Cause sometimes you're like, man, you tithe

37:25 · and it came out automatically,

37:26 · you're like, ah, church again.

37:30 · Or like, man, I had to give up that sin.

37:33 · I had to give up drinking.

37:34 · I had to give up lusting.

37:36 · I had to give up this.

37:38 · And sometimes if we're honest,

37:39 · we can be grumpy Christians.

37:42 · I can't do this.

37:43 · I can't watch that.

37:44 · I can't go there.

37:47 · When was the last time you just looked

37:48 · at the treasure of Jesus Christ

37:49 · and just marveled with joy

37:51 · that I get to follow the God of the entire universe?

37:58 · And we have joy in our following.

38:04 · But maybe that's not you yet.

38:07 · And my challenge for you,

38:10 · if you've never said yes to Jesus,

38:13 · if you've never proclaimed that he is

38:15 · the savior of the world who died for your sins

38:18 · and raised from the grave,

38:20 · and you've never begin this journey of following him,

38:24 · my question for you is, why are you still waiting?

38:29 · You've chased all the garbage of this world

38:33 · and it fills you up for a moment,

38:34 · but it leaves you so, so empty after.

38:37 · How much more disappointments can your sin hand you?

38:42 · Can our culture hand you

38:44 · before you finally stumble upon the Jesus Christ

38:49 · that you treasure hunt to find the treasure of Jesus Christ?

38:53 · That your soul has been longing for?

38:58 · Make the decision to follow Christ today.

39:03 · And for those of us who have,

39:05 · let's do so joyfully to the end of our days.