Welcome. Please turn in you Bibles to Matthew 6: 19-24. We’re going to start tonight by just reading through our Scripture passage — were going to read it, then talk a bit, then pick it apart…
19 "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
22 "The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
24 "No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.
When I was a kid I was in an awful heavy metal band. I wasn’t any good, but I loved to play and I loved guitars. Les Paul’s, Stratocasters, Flying V’s. I loved them and I spent a ton of my time thinking about them (when I wasn’t thinking about girls).
Then I matured, and I began getting into photography. This was an area where I had more talent than in my music, and in a similar fashion, I saw all of this great equipment, large format cameras, Hasselblad medium formats and a Canons and Nikons with all of the necessary lenses and lighting and the works. And I spent a lot of my time, many hours of thought and most of my money on that stuff.
Then I “grew up” and I spent time money and thought on cars, and eventually a house.
And what was true about the guitars that I spent my money on and what was true about all of the photography equipment is also true about the cars and the house.
What was true is that as soon as something is bought it begins to deteriorate.
All of those things eventually fall apart, wear out, get stolen, get wrecked or just loose their appeal because the next “newer and better thing” has come out.
I got a Les Paul guitar, but it was a cheap version of one, the only one we could afford and it never stayed in tune.
My older brother surprised me with a Fender Stratocaster, but it got stolen out of my wife’s car in St. Louis.
I got a Hasselblad camera, the envy of all my friends, but it wore out and it lost favor as the photo world went digital, and it was only good for film.
Four of my cars have been totaled, two more just up and died on us and the rest have just been reliable wheels that have left me longing after the new models that come out each year.
I mean, have you seen the new Camaro? Anyway, you get what I’m talking about, right.
All of those things were not necessarily bad, but each of them became the focus of my attention. They became my treasure, which occupied my time, my thoughts and my heart. And with that being true, that’s where my money went too.
And that’s just the stuff, the things, the materials.
There is also a beautiful wife, then a wonderful little boy, and those two also became focal points in my thoughts and heart.
And we’ve talked about not allowing relationships become ultimate, that is important, but Jesus seems to be addressing stuff here more than people, so we will too.
The big idea of this passage, is that if your life’s pursuit is to gain, more stuff, or more money, or the next bigger and better whatever, or the next better paying job to finance more stuff, more money and more bigger and better things, then watch out.
If that is your pursuit; if those things are your pursuits, if those are the goals that drive you, things will eventually come down around you.
I know I’m not the only one who has faced this, your pursuit may not have been more musical instruments or photo equipment.
For you it may have been golf stuff, or motorcycle stuff, or for you it may have been more and more education, or animals, or computers, or video games.
Or for you it may have just been more cash. Maybe you have seen the devastating problems that come with poverty, so for you the pursuit is simply more and more money because you think that will safe guard you. And you’re tucking it away in a bank or diversifying in stocks or maybe stuffing into a mattress.
And if you are like me, you can justify almost any of this stuff.
— It’s necessary for my profession.
— It’s for the kids.
— The old one’s not cutting it anymore
— It was too good of a deal to pass up…
Or you may be more honest.
— This looked so cool in the store.
— I saw my neighbor with one and I wanted it
— It just makes me feel good to get something new…
The point here for you and the point here for me really the point that Jesus wants to make to any of us that want to follow Him
or are trying to follow Him,
or are contemplating the idea of following Him
The point is this:
If you are living your life to gain anything other than a deeper relationship with Christ,
If you and I make anything more important than God, then we will eventually have to choose which we will pursue and leave the other by the wayside.
Toward the end of this passage Jesus gives us the simple but profound statement: “No one can serve two masters.”
But before we get to that lets start from the top, at verse 19.
Before that though let’s pray…
GOD says, – 19 "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.
(UNPACK) Treasure - th_-sau-ro's, things that we lay up in our treasury, we mainly see this in our money, but it can really be anything that you value deeply.
And this is true for us whether we think of ourselves as rich or poor. Your treasure may be big and expensive or small and cheap, but as Martin Lloyd Jones said, “if it is everything to you, that is your treasure, that is the thing for which you are living.”
Your car, your jewelry, your house, whatever; Jesus says to us, I know you like that new car, but just so you now, the metal is already corroding, the paint is already fading… Everything on this earth is deteriorating.
Even cash, loses value as the market fluctuates and consumer behaviors shift.
The things of this world that we focus on and look to for fulfillment have already begun the cycle in which they will eventually stop satisfying us. So…
20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.
(UNPACK) Now, this is where we move from preaching to meddling in your life.
How do we store up treasures in Heaven? We can’t actually send money to our new earth home and ask Jesus to put a Camaro on layaway for us. What does it look like in our lives to store up treasures in Heaven?
Well, I found out that is you look to five respected commentators on this, you will get as many different answers, so instead we will go to the bible for our answer.
Keep your finger in Matthew 6 and turn ahead to 1 Timothy 6:17-19 Where Paul explains to the young church leader how to address the rich people in the congregation.
And before you say, “Good, that’s fine for the rich, but I’m not rich.”
I would answer this applies to all of us. Just like I said last week about giving to the needy. There is always someone worse off than you. And to them we are rich. So Paul tells Timothy:
17 Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. 18 Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. 19 In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.
Now turn back to Matthew 6:21
21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Matthew Henry breaks this down like this, and I can’t say it any better:
"Where the treasure is, there our cares and fears are, lest we come short of it; about that we are most solicitous (expressing an attitude of concern; paying very close attention to the details); there our hope and trust are; there our joys and delights will be; and there our thoughts will be, there the inward thought will be, the first thought, the free thought, the fixed thought, the frequent, the familiar thought.”
Moving On…
22 "The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
You’re not alone if this is a confusing piece. Pastor Mark Vroegop at College Park Church in Indianapolis studied this passage and points out that the eye was often times a symbol for expressing goals and the body, life, so with that in mind we can re-read the passage:
22 "The goals are the lamp of the life. If your goals are good, your whole life will be full of light. 23 But if your goals are bad, your whole life will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
In other words, if your goals are self focused and not God focused, if our goals are all about our comfort, our pleasure, our wants, our glory then that is a life lived in the darkness. And darkness is not what we are here to show the world people!
We are the light, the city on the hill, we shine God’s light in the darkness and emptiness of this world. So, if we pursue our stuff, we stop ourselves from carrying on the mission that we are called to.
With that understanding, let’s move into…
24 "No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.
Now, you may be used to the other translation of Mammon, instead of Money. The word here is not cash in and of itself, but the placing of cash as the number one priority, or even placing the things that Money gets us. It is a warning against making Stuff our God.
It is not a matter of being rich. Again Martin Lloyd Jones said it is not wealth, but our relationship to that wealth that we need to keep an eye on.
So what’s this look like?
This passage doesn’t tell us to sell everything we have and give it all to the poor. But what we do glean is the fact that many of us (myself included) have spent a majority of our time tending to our own wants and needs and to what we like to think of as our security, (our rainy day funds, our retirement plans)
And we’ve tried to make sure that our kids want for nothing and that our wives and husbands get to have the things that their hearts desire — from that new cell phone to another vacation.
And all the while we pass by the needy who are within our reach, and we neglect the support of our local churches, and we make excuses for not helping the charities that do more as an organization than individuals could or are willing to do separately.
And maybe because we also treasure our comfort and conveniences, we waste the resources of this planet, we defy calls to steward this planet well — at least our little pocket of it — and we add to the negative environmental impacts that affect people across the globe.
What this looks like is what nearly every teaching has looked like. PUT GOD FIRST. First in your giving, first in your spending, first in your saving, first in your loving, first in your thinking.
God First. God First. God First.
One last thought. The thing we choose to pursue, it eventually gets easier and easier to pursue that thing as we make the next decision — and the next — and the next.
And with each decision to follow that thing, whether it is Christ or the stuff of the world, the thing that we don’t choose begins to seem less and less like a choice.
Brothers and sisters, what Jesus challenges us with in this passage and what I would challenge you with is, make the choice TONIGHT to begin pursuing Christ the ultimate treasure in Heaven.
And remember Our Lord is just that. He is the Lord, the King. He is God and He doesn’t want to be second or third or wherever He falls in our list of priorities.
He demands that we put him first in all things.
This may sound cheesy, and you may not like to do the group participation thing, but I’m gonna have Andy pass out these little slips of paper and pencils and I want you to write on the paper, what it is that you have been pursuing more than Jesus.
You aren’t turning these in to me I want you to keep it somewhere that you will be reminded this week. Maybe put it on your bathroom mirror, maybe tape it to your dashboard, maybe put it in your wallet. Whatever; just put it somewhere that is hard to miss.
And the first blank is for your name. Personalize this message. This sermon isn’t for your husband or your wife, or your kids or your parents. This sermon isn’t for your annoying coworker; it’s for you.
Own this message. Apply it to YOUR life.
So the first blank is your name and the second is the thing that you’ve been making ultimate before God.
“____________________, you cannot serve both God and __________________________________.”
Your second blank may be the next car, or the next camera, it may be the next degree, or the next house, it may be the next job, or the next promotion, it may be the next computer or the next video game, it may be the next set of season tickets or it may simply be more and more cash. Or it may be something that I haven’t mentioned.
Like I said, this passage deals heavily with stuff, but if your blank is best filled in with your kids or your spouse or your boss or your addiction or your lust, or your self esteem then so be it.
Remember this should be personal and it should be specific.
Let’s pray…
