This blog is based on a message by Pastor Todd Cosenza.
We are meant to be a kingdom people.
That is not just a church phrase. It is not a nice idea to put on a sign or work into a sermon title. The kingdom of God is the answer to the brokenness of this world. It is the answer to the chaos in the culture, the mess in the Church, and the turmoil inside individual lives.
Yes, salvation matters. Absolutely. Jesus saves, forgives, redeems, and makes us new. But salvation is not the finish line. It is the doorway into a new life. And that new life is kingdom life.
There is more than simply getting saved. There is a transformed way of living. There is a way of thinking, receiving, trusting, and walking that the world does not understand. It is the life of the kingdom of God.
The Kingdom Is Treasure
Jesus spent a great deal of time helping people understand the kingdom. In Matthew 13, He uses multiple pictures and parables to explain what the kingdom of heaven is like. That alone tells you something important. The kingdom is vast. It is powerful. It is beautiful. And it can be hard to grasp if we only think in natural terms.
One of the clearest pictures comes in Matthew 13:44:
“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 he had and bought that field.”
Start with that first phrase: the kingdom of heaven is like treasure.
If we really understood the value of God’s kingdom, we would treat it as the most precious thing in existence. More valuable than money. More valuable than gold. More valuable than property, influence, status, or every earthly asset combined.
If someone truly understands the kingdom, they can have little in the natural and still know they are rich. Why? Because what God gives in His kingdom is worth more than everything this world can offer.
The King brought the kingdom. Jesus did not just come to get people into heaven one day. He brought the reign, rule, power, and reality of heaven into the earth. He is the King, and where the King is welcomed, His kingdom is present.
Why Treasure Is Hidden in a Field
Jesus did not say the kingdom is like treasure sitting on a polished shelf in a palace. He said it is treasure hidden in a field.
That matters.
A field, especially an unattended one, is usually messy. It has weeds. It has clutter. It has things blowing into it and getting stuck there for years. It is not polished. It is not tidy. It is not carefully manicured.
That image helps us understand why so many people miss the kingdom. It is there, but it is hidden. It is present, but not always obvious at first glance.
That field can be understood in several ways.
The world is a field
The world is full of disorder, sin, pain, and destruction. It is a mess. Yet right in the middle of this broken world, Jesus brought the kingdom.
The Church is a field
The Church is precious, but it is not perfect. Every church is made up of imperfect people. That means there can be issues, weaknesses, and growing pains. Still, right there in the middle of the field, the treasure is present. The kingdom is in the Church.
Your life is a field
This may be the most personal and powerful way to read the parable. Jesus said the kingdom is within you. If you belong to Him, then His kingdom is not just around you. It is in you.
That means your life may have weeds, mess, confusion, pain, and unfinished areas. Yet even there, the treasure has been deposited. God is not waiting for a perfect field before He places His kingdom there. He puts His kingdom where it is needed most.
He does not reserve it for people who think they already have it all together. He places His kingdom in lives that need transformation. Why? Because the kingdom has the power to remove the garbage, uproot the weeds, bring beauty, and produce fruit.
That is good news. God loves to place His kingdom right in the middle of the mess.
The Kingdom Requires an Exchange
Matthew 13:44 does not stop at discovery. The man finds the treasure, but then something happens. He goes back, sells all he has, and buys the field.
And he does it in joy.
That detail is huge. He is not grieving the loss because he understands the gain. He is not making a bad trade. He is making the best trade of his life.
That is the kingdom. It is freely given because Jesus paid for it. But receiving it still involves surrender. There is an exchange.
The Christian life is built on this great exchange:
- We lay down our life to receive His life.
- We surrender our rule to receive His rule.
- We release what we are clinging to in order to take hold of what He offers.
It does not work to ask Jesus to simply sit on top of the old life while we keep full ownership of it. His life and the old life do not mix. Trying to hold onto both is exhausting.
It is like oil and water. You can stir them for a while and make it look like they are coming together, but they separate again. That is what happens when someone tries to cling to their old identity, old fears, old patterns, and old control while also trying to live in the fullness of God’s kingdom.
Eventually, that struggle wears you out.
But when you understand the value of what Jesus offers, surrender becomes joyful. You begin to realize that what you are giving up is nothing compared to what you are receiving.
What Is Inside the Treasure Chest?
If the kingdom is treasure, what exactly are we receiving?
Paul gives a direct answer in Romans 14:17:
“For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”
That is the treasure chest opened up for us.
The kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.
These are not distant theological ideas floating around somewhere in heaven. These are kingdom realities. And if the kingdom is in you, then these realities are available in you.
Righteousness: Your New Identity
Righteousness means right standing with God. It means being made acceptable before Him, not on the basis of our performance, but on the basis of what Christ has done.
And this is where grace gets breathtaking.
God did not lower His standard of righteousness so that we could somehow crawl into relationship with Him. He lifted us into His righteousness. What He gives is not a second-class version. He gives us His own righteousness as a gift.
So when you come to Jesus, the exchange is not merely bad behavior for better behavior. It is unrighteousness exchanged for His perfect righteousness.
That means your failures are not your identity.
Your dysfunction is not your identity.
Your past is not your identity.
Your mistakes are not your identity.
If you are in Christ, you are robed in righteousness.
That is not something you manufacture. It is something you receive.
And because it came from Him, no one else gets to take it away. This is why a kingdom mindset matters so much. You have to stop defining yourself by the weeds in the field and start identifying yourself by the treasure in the field.
Your life may still have some mess in it, but the deepest truth about you is not the mess. The deepest truth about you is the kingdom that has been placed within you.
Peace: More Than Better Circumstances
The second treasure Paul names is peace.
This is not just relief when things finally calm down. This is not the temporary peace that depends on your schedule clearing up, your bills getting paid, or your situation turning around.
This is kingdom peace.
It is the kind of peace Jesus had in the boat during the storm. While everyone else panicked, He slept. That is not denial. That is not disengagement. That is supernatural peace.
Kingdom peace is not built on perfect circumstances. It is built on trust in the King.
Sometimes God gives peace before He gives the answer. In fact, He often does. He may allow you to sit in that place where the winds are still swirling so that you learn to receive His peace before the breakthrough appears.
Why? Because that kind of peace grows faith.
When you choose to breathe, trust, and rest in God before the answer comes, something changes in you. You stop being ruled by the storm. You stop waiting for external calm before allowing internal calm. And from that place, you often find that clarity comes and the answer follows.
There is a peace that remains. It does not rise and fall with every headline, every emotion, or every new problem. That peace belongs to the kingdom.
Joy: Strength for the Battle
The third treasure is joy.
This is not shallow happiness. It is not pretending everything is fine. It is not forced positivity.
This is Spirit-filled joy. The kind of joy that strengthens you from the inside out.
It is the joy described in Nehemiah, where the joy of the Lord becomes strength. Real strength. Strength in your body, your mind, and your emotions. Strength that enables you to stand when pressure comes.
When kingdom joy is working in your life, the enemy loses his ability to crush you with every attack. You are no longer moving through life drained and defeated. You are being carried by something deeper than your mood.
This joy is part of the treasure. It is in the kingdom. And if the kingdom is in you, joy is not permanently absent from your life. It may be buried under heaviness, but it is there and available through the exchange.
Why Many People Do Not Experience What Is Already Theirs
This raises an honest question. If righteousness, peace, and joy are in the kingdom, and the kingdom is in us, why do so many believers live without them?
Because finding the treasure is not the same as making the exchange.
Many people know the language of the kingdom, but they are still holding tightly to old patterns of thinking.
They are trying to hold onto:
- shame and righteousness
- fear and peace
- sadness and joy
- old identity and kingdom identity
But those things do not mix. You cannot keep gripping “stinking thinking” and fully receive kingdom thinking at the same time. One has to be laid down for the other to be taken up.
This is where the great exchange becomes intensely practical.
Making the Great Exchange in Real Life
Here is what this looks like where we actually live.
When your identity is buried under problems
Maybe you have come to believe that your life is nothing more than the total of your failures, your health struggles, your dysfunction, your regrets, and your weaknesses.
That is the moment to come back to Jesus and say:
I am laying down these thoughts and these labels. I will not define myself by my problems. I will receive Your righteousness as my identity.
Your field may still contain weeds, but the treasure is greater than the weeds.
When fear and stress are taking over
Maybe your life feels like constant pressure. You are worrying all the time. Stress is affecting your mind, your emotions, and even your body.
This is where you bring those real burdens before the Lord without pretending they do not exist. Kingdom living is not denial. It is exchange.
You say:
Lord, these fears are real, but I am putting them before You. In the field of my life there is a treasure, and I choose to receive Your peace.
Then you trust Him enough to breathe, enough to rest, enough to stop striving, even before the circumstances change.
When sadness has become your atmosphere
Maybe you feel stuck in heaviness. Maybe you feel like all you want to do is withdraw, sleep, or escape. Maybe joy feels far away.
That is not God’s will for your life.
You may have real pain, but the answer is still found in the treasure of the kingdom. This is where you tell the Lord:
I am willing to lay down this sadness before You, and I receive Your joy. Let Your joy become the strength of my life.
Again, there must be an exchange. You cannot cling to despair as your identity and fully receive kingdom joy at the same time.
A Kingdom Mindset Changes Everything
At its core, this message is about a mindset shift.
It is about deciding that God’s Word carries more authority than your feelings, your assumptions, your inner narratives, or the conclusions you have drawn from your circumstances.
That is what surrender looks like in daily life.
It is saying:
- Your truth, Lord, over my distorted thinking.
- Your will, Lord, over my preferences.
- Your kingdom, Lord, over my chaos.
If Jesus prayed, “Not my will, but Yours,” then we should not be surprised that kingdom life requires the same posture in us.
We do not always see the end from the beginning. We do not always understand what God is doing. But trust does not require full visibility. Trust requires willingness.
That willingness matters. Often, when we take one step toward God, He meets us with far more. But we still have to take the step.
Do Not Settle for Less Than the Treasure
Sometimes we settle for conditions in our lives that we should never have accepted as normal.
We settle for confusion instead of clarity.
We settle for bitterness instead of forgiveness.
We settle for dysfunction instead of the life of the Spirit.
We settle for living governed by fear, sadness, or shame, all while the treasure of the kingdom is sitting in the field.
But the call of Jesus is clear. Find the treasure. Recognize its value. Make the exchange. And do it with joy.
He is not asking you to trade up into something lesser. He is asking you to surrender what is broken so you can receive what is eternal, powerful, and life-giving.
The kingdom of God is not theory. It is not abstract. It is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. And it is the only way forward.
A Simple Prayer of Exchange
If you need language for this today, pray simply and honestly:
Lord Jesus, I am willing to make the exchange. I lay down my confusion for Your clarity, my fear for Your peace, my shame for Your righteousness, my sadness for Your joy, and my bitterness for Your love and forgiveness. Teach me to live from the treasure of Your kingdom that You have placed within me. Amen.
Application Questions
- What “weeds” or “garbage” in the field of your life have you been allowing to define you?
- Where do you sense God asking you to make a fresh exchange with Him?
- Are you trying to hold onto your old way of thinking while also asking for kingdom peace, joy, and righteousness?
- Which part of the kingdom treasure do you most need to receive right now: righteousness, peace, or joy?
- What would it look like this week to stand fully on the side of God’s Word instead of your feelings?
