Worship God With His Wealth

for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

The, the, all three sections are built on contrast or dichotomies. Do not store up treasures on earth, store up treasures in heaven. Is your eye healthier? Is your eye bad? You cannot serve two masters. The, the common wisdom in earthly investment is to diversify. Jesus instruction is the opposite. Be single minded, single hearted and investing. There is no diversity strategy here. It is a dichotomy. There is one way in which you're seeking to live. It is either here and now as a consumer, or it is for the life Christ has raised, it was resurrected for, to give you in eternity. It's important as we think about this heaven and earth. Our king is speaking to us as the citizens of his kingdom. The kingdom of heaven has broken into this earth. We were created from this earth to live in this earth, to rule this earth, to enjoy this earth. And we decided we could do better than God. We decided we weren't going to be satisfied with just the trees he gave us. We wanted the one he said not to eat of. And in seeking to gain something a little more than what God had given us, we lost everything. And so Christ, the Son of God, came to be with us. He came from heaven to give us a different blessing and really a different home, a different destination. We have been restored from everything we've lost partially in the garden. We are designed still to live in this world and enjoy the things this earth. Jesus just told us we should pray to have our daily bread. The next section is going to be about how we can be anxious about not receiving our daily bread. We are supposed to and designed to enjoy the things of this earth as God has given us and to celebrate with them. Here, the idea of treasure, and really it's do not treasure things, do not treasure up treasures on earth and do not, or you're to treasure up treasure in heaven, It's what we ultimately hope for and delight and invest our lives with. It's where is our ultimate hope and joy. Jesus here is giving you the kingdom investment strategy. Really, it's an investment opportunity because if you do not know Christ, there is only one way to invest and it is in the here and now. He's giving you a new investment opportunity. to invest where rust and moth do not destroy and thieves cannot steal. Again, a significant assumption behind this teaching is that God owns everything. There is no real home ownership. You're gonna die and leave it. Whatever we think we own, it's stewarding. We have this worth and whatever God gives us for a little while and there is a call to steward it while we have it. He is the giver of all good things. The creator gives us what we need. And then there's the gospel truth. Christ came down to give us heavenly blessings. In Christ we've received eternal life, forgiveness. He calls us up to have a new home. One of the most significant passages that lie behind this teaching is that he has gone before us to prepare a mansion. Do we live like Christ is risen and that he's preparing a mansion? Are we seeking to think about how we would invest our lives and energy and money and time in that life eternal? Or are we seeking to see what we can get here on earth, pretending this dichotomy is not one that has a real difference. Notice the king's appeal to you. He's telling you, you can invest somewhere where it will not be lost. There is an eternal secure investment. In the heavens where he secures what you will have and enjoy for all eternity, there is no moth, there is no rust, there are no thieves. The king is appealing to us against our selfishness to do what is really best for ourselves. Invest in what is eternal and imperishable. Now here's the reality. As much as we believe Jesus Christ has died for our sins, risen again, and ascended to the right hand of the Father, we will invest in his heavenly kingdom. We will trust he is going to keep his promise that there is a heavenly treasure. Verse 21 gives us the first principle to establish these commandments. There is a dichotomy, you are not to invest in this world for just today, you are to invest in what Christ has set before you for all eternity. The appeal of verse 21 is an appeal to protect your own heart.

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Wherever you're seeking to invest your life, wherever you're seeking to delight in and to store up your treasure, your heart, your love is going to follow. Said another way from Randy Alcorn's Treasure Principle, a very helpful book on this,

your heart will go where you invest God's money.

Wherever you're investing your time, your energy, but here especially God's money, your heart is going to follow. So where are you practicing your love? See, all things are God's. He gives us all good things. Are we rejoicing the resurrection with all that God gives us? Or are we actually so heavenly minded that we might be earthly good to establish God's kingdom of heaven here on earth? Now again, we need to be aware of our isms. Secularism just means we don't believe in eternity. Secular means we're just time bound. All there is, is right now. Materialism says there's nothing of existence except for these physical bodies. There's no soul, there's no spirit, there's no God, there's no angels. And that is the foundation for consumerism. Just what can I get in this material world today? Because that's all there is. Our church must be a place where we seek to cure our own consumerism. The church must be a place where we are being faced with the realities of God's goodness, God's ownership, God's generosity. What's really amazing about verse 21, he's not just teaching you an investment strategy, he's teaching how to protect your own heart. He's teaching you how to protect your heart regarding what you might love in the wrong way and too much. So some pressing questions as we think about verses 19 to 21. How much do you worry about not having enough money or things? Do you take these worries up to God and trust him who is the giver of all good gifts? How quickly and cheerfully are you to give? Do you think giving is somebody else's responsibility and the way you can think about how you're going to use your gifts from God? Do you regularly prayerfully thank God for all that you have? It's tax season. Do you thank God for all that you have? And do you joyfully obey him to pay your taxes? It is commanded in scripture. One of the ways I always ask folks to analyze their lives, what's in pen and what's in pencil in your calendar? Young folks, there used to be these physical calendars you wrote in pen and pencil. It's a metaphor. What's promised in your investment? What was the first thing you spend your time on and your money on? And then what are the options? Are we in prioritizing the things God has set before us? It's important to see that a heart that joyfully receives with gratitude is softened and opened by the grace of God. A heart that is opened by God's grace produces a hand that is open to giving. A heart that is closed by fear, anxiety, and selfish ambition produces a hand that does not do anything but selfish intent. We see the two commands, we see the principle first of your hearts following where you do invest your treasure. The second section, internal inspection. Internal inspection.

The eye is a lamp of the body, so if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness?

Now again, notice he isn't repeating anything in a command. He he's telling you what is. He's establishing the foundation for why you might not be treasuring things on heaven, but you're treasuring things on earth. It's the eye, the eye and the heart have a relationship. The eye is a lamp of the whole body. The first principle was your heart will follow where you invest God's money. Now he gives a different picture, a different principle that is related. What are you focused upon? Your eye, what you see, what you desire to see, how you see God and what he gives you and the opportunities before you, that is a lamp unto your whole body. What do we look for? What do we expect? Our hearts will follow our treasure. Our eyes determine what we treasure. There's a rule when you're mountain biking. If you want to avoid something, you don't look at it. You put your eye where you want the bike tire to go. If you stare at the rock and say, I'm not going to hit the rock, guess what you're going to do? Your hands will go where you're staring. Your eyes direct your life. What are you seeking? with what you're looking for. More helpful, I think we can see this picture of what the I is from Proverbs. Turn to Proverbs 22. Proverbs 22. Proverbs 22 nine. reflect this positive statement that if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light. Proverbs 22, 9,

whoever has a bountiful eye will be blessed for he shares his bread with the poor. Do not toil to acquire wealth, but discern enough to desist.

So Proverbs 29 tells us something about here. The bountiful eye, the good eye, the healthy eye, it's blessed. It sees the need and meets it. And I also believe that means he sees God as a generous God. If you turn over to Proverbs 23, five, there's a warning. I'll begin in Proverbs 23, verse three.

Do not desire the rich man's delicacies, for they are deceptive food. Do not toil to acquire wealth, be discerning enough to desist. When your eyes light on it, it is gone, for suddenly it sprouts wings, flying like an eagle toward heaven.

Proverbs 22 talks about a bountiful eye that's blessed because he seeks to share. Proverbs 23 tells of an eye that is so focused on the delicacies of the rich, it's gone, it's empty. This picture is helpful for us to understand what Jesus is saying because I believe both of these are a wisdom declaration to tell us how to live well. The eye is blessed, it sees God as the owner and giver of all good things, the generous God. The eye that sees God as generous towards us is generous towards others. But the eye that just sees what everybody else has and wants it, it's left empty, unsatisfied. The eye that covets what God has given to other people is not trusting God to be the good, wise giver of all gifts. The eyes that see that I have are not ever grateful, but they grumble. If you remember previously, Christ taught, blessed are you if you hunger and thirst for Christ's righteousness. If your eye is set on desiring and enjoying what Christ would give you, the promise is you'll be satisfied. The eye here is mentioned both with being generous and stingy. Do you see God as stingy, unfair, or benevolent and generous? Again, how we view God is going to determine our heart and its relationship to what he gives. Let's do a quick crash course on what God says about himself in scripture. James 1 that we sat under yesterday, last Sunday with Matt.

He is the giver of every good and perfect gift.

Ephesians 1, 7 to 8 says,

the father gives every heavenly blessing and he blesses us with his grace which he lavished upon us.

Ephesians 2.4,

we were dead, but God made us alive, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us.

Ephesians 3,

praise to him who was able to do far more abundantly, more than we think or ask.

Romans 8.24, the reasoning,

he who did not withhold his own son, will he withhold any good thing from us?

Or we can just go right back to Matthew in chapter six. Do not be anxious. Look how God cares for the birds. Look how God dresses the lilies of the field, how generous he is. Or Matthew seven, seven to 11, teaching us that the heavenly father is good. How much better is he than our earthly fathers who give us good things, we ask. How much more will our heavenly father give us good gifts? That is a starting place. Because we have to remember, Satan's starting place in the temptation was causing us to question if God is good. Is he rich? Is he good? Is he generous? That has to be the foundation for what Jesus is teaching. Because if we see God with our eye as good, and we see all that he has given us is good, it changes what we desire. and how we seek to use what God has given us. God has created us to have a right relationship with him, and in so doing, we'll have a right relationship with wealth, money, and the things created for us to rule. Now, verse 23 ends, again, with this kind of even more underlying principle. The eye is the lamp of the body, so what you see is gonna determine the rest of your life, your body, specifically the heart there, The healthy eye leads to full of light. The bad eye leads to full of darkness. And then that last statement,

if then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness?

If what we're seeking causes our darkness inside, how will you ever see? What an impossible situation. If the darkness is in you, how difficult that must be. What kind of hopeless situation there is if what we're seeing is just consumerism and greed, and that's inside of us. What a horrible, terrifying situation. You see, sin is a compounding problem. The more we seek sin, the more it is given over to us. We're given over to it. If you invest in stinginess, you will live as a miser. So what are you to do? If your eye is bad, your whole body's bad. If your eyes unhealthy, you're full of darkness. What are you to do? This is where we believe in the great God who changes us. He purifies us. He washes us. He is the light that comes in the darkness. He is the one who can give us any light at all so that we can seek and see him in a different way. If I pray there, are some who would be convicted that their eyes have been set on the wrong goals and the wrong desires. What are you to do? Jesus already gave us an instruction. If we go back to Matthew 5,

blessed are the poor in heart for theirs the kingdom of heaven.

If you realize how impoverished you are with true light inside, the God of all light blesses you to see that and the God of all light and grace promises that He will lavish His mercy upon you. He can heal you. You cannot heal yourself. You cannot, with your own darkness, cure your darkness. But if you look up to God, if you look to Christ who forgives you by dying on the cross for you, if you look to Christ who gives you new life in His resurrection, if you look to Father and Son who give you the Holy Spirit to change you inside, He can heal you. One of the questions we have to ask is what kind of fruit are we bearing because of what our eyes desire? Jesus will teach us in just a few chapters that you know a tree by its fruit. What do your eyes desire and what does that accomplish? I want to step back from the passage for a moment and just make sure we actually appreciate what he's saying because it is terrifying to think about how dangerous the love of money is. Paul tells us the love of money is a source and root of all kinds of evil. So let's make sure we understand what he's saying and what he's not saying. First, Jesus is not teaching that it is sinful to have much or to have wealth. It is not sinful to have wealth. It's sinful for how you pursue it and how you use it. He's saying that it is sinful what makes us sinful is our primary ambition and what we're doing with what God gives. He's warning us about how we relate to money and how we use money or how we use God. Another clarification, let's be clear here, being rich is not the only money problem. Being poor causes its own money problems. Being poor promotes anxiety. Being poor could cause us to not trust God who will give us our daily bread. We can sin with money rather have much or have little. The solution to this is not to live like a miser that is not godly living. The solution to this is see that God is a good giver and that we can use what he gives us for his glory. One more clarification that I'm not sure everyone's going to like. My grand assumption is that everyone in this room is rich. If you have a car, you're rich. If you have a secure housing and you're not worried about your housing situation, if you have indoor plumbing, you're rich. If you've not worried about where your next meal is coming from this month, you're rich. We live in such a wealthy society, we take for granted all we have. Being wealthy is not the sin, it's what are we pursuing ultimately? And what are we doing with it ultimately? The more we have, the greater stewardship it is. Again, I believe the great danger is our disposition, our being natural born consumers seeking to live the way we want to with God and his money versus seeking to know how he would have us live. One more opportunity I wanna make sure we understand is that we're going to see a new church budget at the next members meeting. That's one of the ways that we come together as a church. We think about money together. We think about what our commitment is together. We seek to be unified in building up the kingdom of heaven here on earth. It's why we ask the church to give faithfully and regularly. It's why we have the offering as part of the worship service because your money, our money is that important to God and his kingdom. If you're a new believer, there is no rule for how much you're supposed to give, other than generously, cheerfully. Typically, the wise starting place is 10%. We haven't talked about this well as a local church or in churches because of fear of what it means to talk about money. It's one of those idols we avoid. The goal was to be grateful for what we received and to come together with a church budget. And I'm so encouraged that the church you gave to what some called was an impossible budget to meet last year. God in his faithfulness used you to provide for our church budget and even our renovations. I want to encourage you. I pray you're encouraged by what is happening here in God's church. That there's so much we can be doing to spread the kingdom of heaven through this local church here on earth. I want to challenge you as to what you do with your eyes when it comes to the budget. Do we look and say, how can we save God's money? Or do we look and say, how can we further God's kingdom with our united effort and what we spend on? The budget is how we unite together. to spread the kingdom of God. The third section, verse 24, as if it hasn't gotten awkward enough already or challenging enough, Jesus gives us the strongest dichotomy, incompatible allegiances. We come back to the heart.

No one can serve two masters, for 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 God and money.

Our king, who is the great ruler of all blessings, he is the great source of all blessings, heavenly blessings and earthly blessings. He's out giving us this final principle. That, that, that establishes where and how you're supposed to be investing the treasures and versus 19 and 21. That first one was where your treasure is. Your heart will follow. And then the next one is your eyes are going to direct your life and what you are treasuring. And now it's you're serving only one master. The, the, the, the, the establishment, you, you hate one and you love the other, you despise one and are devoted to the other. He's teaching us something really important about our limitations. We have a finite amount of love. We only have an ability to love one thing ultimately and supremely. We pretend we have capacity to control different loves and we can pretend we can practice sin and have a control over it. Jesus teaches very clearly, when you practice sin, it becomes your master. You cannot love two things as if God. You can't have a split religious devotion. We lie to ourselves. We deceive ourselves that we can do this. But here, you will devote yourself to one and you'll despise the other. Paul says this in a different way. We exchange the glory of God to glorify things he created. Every financial planner will tell you, diversify. Jesus is saying it's impossible when it comes to your love and your service and your worship. The safe way to invest your life is single-hearted, single-minded devotion to God. This is based upon Jesus telling us what the greatest command is,

love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind.

We pretend we can love God and other things side by side, but that is impossible. We are either devoted to God and using everything else to worship him, or we're using God to worship everything he gives us. Let's make sure we understand that. We are either devoted to God and using everything he gives us to worship him, or we're using God. to worship everything he gives us. We only have one ultimate supreme love and devotion. Serve is a key word. Notice how it bookends this entire section. You cannot serve two masters. You cannot serve God and money. Serve is a key word for a theology of worship. It's that practical way in which how are we investing our life? Who and what are we serving with our time, energy, our mental bandwidth? What are we thinking about? What are we fantasizing about? What do we dream about? We pretend life is compartmentalized so that at 1030, worship starts. And then whenever I'm done preaching, it ends. We compartmentalize. All of life belongs to God. He gives it all. All of life. For the believer belongs to Christ. Every moment, every meal, every activity, it's all designed to be worship. So we love the Lord our God with all our heart, and we use all that he gives us. We would despise any other thing we would want to treat as God. But we are to use all that he gives us to worship him. Jesus gives us the rule, love the Lord your God. Here we see the power of how we're investing our lives. Is it for what's imperishable? What Christ has risen to secure for us? Is our eyes focused on what God has truly given us as good and filling us with true light? And are we devoted to loving God in a way that will despise anything else that is a counterfeit God? or competes with God. God is the giver of every good and perfect gift. May we pray and seek the wisdom to use all that he gives us for his glory. Will you pray with me? Father, we thank you that you give us all good things. Lord, may we know how to be grateful for all you give us. May we first start with just you've given us, Father, your son. To give us what we truly need in salvation, you've given us your spirit to convict us of sin, to give us wisdom, to see you, to purify us so that may glorify you. You've given us instruction regarding all of life and all of worship. Or may we see your good gifts and be grateful. May we pray for the wisdom to use what you give us for your glory. May you give us the grace of repenting for wanting to store up for our own security. For trying to find satisfaction in what we can gain as consumers in this world. Lord, pray we would know how to delight well. Pray we would seek to delight first and foremost in loving you, and trusting you, and serving you. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.