July 13, 2025 • 45 mins
How do you know what you really treasure? Jesus says the evidence hides in three everyday choices—where you store wealth, what you fix your eyes on, and whom you ultimately obey. In this week’s Red Letters message, Pastor Kelly Kinder walks through Matthew 6:19-24 and invites us to run a spiritual forensic audit.
Earthly vs. Heavenly Deposits — Kelly retells the tragic case of Bertha Adams, who died penniless while hoarding millions, to underscore Jesus’ warning that earthly assets are always one moth, one recession, or one hacker away from ruin. Heavenly deposits—acts of love, mercy, and gospel generosity—grow compound joy in a realm no thief can enter.
Clear vs. Clouded Vision — The eye, Jesus says, is the lamp of the body. A “healthy” or single-minded eye fills life with clarity and purpose; a “bad” or greedy eye leaves even successful people stumbling in darkness. Kelly challenges us to check our digital diets: Do our screens train us to give or to crave?
God vs. Money — Jesus ends the debate: “You cannot serve two masters.” Money is a brilliant servant but a brutal boss. When it calls the shots, anxiety skyrockets and generosity shrivels. Kelly offers three practical moves: automate first-fruits giving, set lifestyle ceilings below income ceilings, and convert talents or hobbies into kingdom blessing.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Kelly Kinder (00:03):
I'm so excited.
We've been continuing in ourseries on the book of Matthew on
the Sermon on the Mount, calledRed Letters, and I'm just
thrilled to get to be able to dothis.
It's Jesus' sermon that hepreached there to a group of
people that were reallychallenged by his message, and
so we're also challenged by it.
(00:24):
I think most of us.
If we read it and take itseriously, we just think of the
things that this message todaywe're going to be talking about.
Where is your treasure?
Where is your treasure?
And it's a good question.
We all need to answer thatquestion.
Miss Bertha Adams was 71 yearsold when she died alone in West
Palm Beach, florida, back in1976.
(00:46):
And the coroner's report readcause of death malnutrition and
after wasting away to 50 pounds,she could no longer stay alive.
That's pretty serious.
They found a veritable pig penthe biggest mess you can imagine
, they wrote.
One seasoned inspector declaredhe had never seen a dwelling in
(01:08):
greater disarray.
Bertha had begged for food ather neighbor's doors and had
gotten what clothes she had fromthe Salvation Army.
From all appearances she was apenniless recluse, a pitiful and
forgotten widow, but such wasnot the case.
Amid the jumble of her filthy,disheveled belongings were found
(01:32):
two keys to a safe deposit boxat two different local banks.
The discovery was unbelievable.
The first box contained over700 AT&T stock certificates,
plus hundreds of other valuablenotes, bonds and solid financial
securities, not to mention cashamounting to $200,000.
(01:54):
The second box had nocertificates, just cash $600,000
to be exact.
Bertha Adams was amultimillionaire, and then some.
She yet died of starvation.
Her case was even more tragic,I guess, if she was destitute
spiritually.
(02:14):
Her story is kind of an extremeexample of a distorted value
system, and we want to talkabout that today.
Our consumer society you seeit's kind of like drives us to
get more, have more, buy more,doesn't it that we think that
life consists of what we have,our possessions?
(02:35):
And Jesus comes along and hesays something different.
This Sermon on the Mount is, Iguess you could say, as people
call it, an ethical sermon.
It's Jesus' ethics of thekingdom, and there's a
distinction here between what wemight say is the kingdom of
self versus what Jesus offershere, where morality is often
(03:02):
defined as whatever feels rightto me.
We're living in a society thathas the morality based on
whatever feels right to meversus the kingdom of God which
Jesus is going to tell us abouttoday.
But one thing is certain, Iknow this, that the gospel, it
really upsets our value systemand we've gone through this
(03:24):
passage where Jesus says youhave heard it said, but I say to
you you have heard it said, butI say to you, and today he's
going to challenge our valuesystem and I think, while we
know that, as Christians, thetug is so strong for us to say
no to the, to the buy me nowculture.
Really, what we're talkingabout is how Jesus wants us to
(03:45):
say no to the buy-me-now culture.
Really, what we're talkingabout is how Jesus wants us to
live for one person and that'shim.
Chuck Colson, way back in 1991,made me think of this, this idea
between ethics and morality.
Chuck Colson, if you rememberhim, if you're old enough to
remember him, he was involved asa cabinet member in the Nixon
administration, presidentNixon's administration, and the
(04:08):
result of that was, as many ofyou know, was the Watergate
scandal, and back then it was apretty big deal.
I don't know that it comparesanything with what's going on
today, but Chuck Colson wasbasically convicted of the
crimes that he was involved inin the Watergate scandal.
He was put in prison and hespent a number of years there
(04:30):
and during the prison time heactually came to Christ.
He became a Christian and hekind of, for that time after
that, began to teach and preachabout what God had shown him, as
he had changed his value system.
And he discussed the differenceback in 1991 at a lecture at the
Harvard Business School.
(04:51):
And they tell the lecturer whyHarvard can't teach ethics.
And he argues that ethics, hesays, is rooted in a
transcendent moral order, whilemorals are more subjective and
influenced by societal andindividual beliefs.
(05:12):
So in other words, morals arewhat is so it's what you see but
ethics are what ought to be.
So essentially we have, I think, in our society so rejected the
truths of Scripture that ournation has essentially become
demoralized.
So when truth is rejected orit's put down, it's made less
(05:34):
than what it should be.
Guess what we have?
We have cultural chaos, becausenobody knows which end is up.
And as the Old Testamentdescribed those who lived in
that day like this they did whatwas right in their own eyes,
everybody did what was right intheir own eyes.
And so, if you haven't realizedit by now, we're living in a
(05:57):
culture whose value system ismore distorted and perverted
than I think I've ever seen inour history.
So what are values?
Values are fundamental beliefsthat guide us or motivate us to
think.
That is our attitudes and howwe live, that is our behaviors.
Values are like I guess you'dsay they're like our moral
(06:19):
compass, and so if our life isaligned with Jesus' values,
guess what we're going to?
Our moral compass is going topoint us always to the right
thing.
It's kind of what Cody saidthis morning.
We had really two othermessages this morning, derek and
Abby and Cody, so we're justthankful for what God is going
(06:42):
to show us this morning.
I hope you'll be listening.
Let's kind of look at thisMatthew 7, 24.
I just want to remind you thescripture.
We're going to look at chapter6 of Matthew, but I want to go
back to what really the thrustof this whole sermon is about,
and I said this last time when Ispoke Matthew 7, 24.
Matthew 7, 24, everyone thenwho hears these words of mine
(07:06):
and does them will be like awise man who built his house on
the rock.
So, with these words in ringingin our ears, let's look at
Matthew 6.
We're going to look at verses19 through 24.
Where is your treasure?
Jesus speaking, do not lay upfor yourselves treasures on
earth, where moth and rustdestroy and where thieves break
(07:29):
in and steal, but lay up foryourselves treasures in heaven,
where neither moth nor rustdestroys and where thieves do
not break in and steal, forwhere your treasure is there,
your heart will be also.
The eye is the lamp of the body, so if your eye is healthy,
your whole body will be full oflight, but if your eye is bad,
(07:53):
your whole body will be full ofdarkness.
If, then, the light in you isdarkness, how great is that
darkness?
No one can serve two masters,for either he will hate the one
and love the other, or he willbe devoted to the one and
despise the other.
You cannot serve God and money.
(08:15):
Let's pray, father, spirit ofGod, lord, we ask that you would
open the Scripture today.
Lord, as we hear your words,lord, we ask that you would open
the scripture today, lord, aswe hear your words, lord, we ask
that you would leave no area ofour lives that would keep us
from following you.
With a whole heart, lord, Ijust pray that we would be like
(08:38):
those first servants who weretold Lord do whatever he tells
you.
And when they obeyed you turnedwater into wine.
So, lord, transform us by yourWord today.
Speak to us, holy Spirit, inJesus' name, amen.
(09:00):
Let me just say up front, really, just so you don't get the idea
, because when you hear thetitle when is your Treasure?
You may think this is a sermonabout money.
That's part of it, but reallythis is not about wealth.
Primarily.
It's really about what we wouldsay is our ability to follow
Christ.
It's about absolutediscipleship.
So, jesus' words, if you, wewhat he's saying here.
(09:26):
They cover a lot of issues ofthe heart which we don't have to
count time to cover all these,but let me just kind of mention
them because the tendency, as Isaid, is to live for the here
and now.
It's what we see.
We have blinders on and that'sthe mentality of getting all you
can and canning all you get.
(09:47):
We have words for it.
You've heard them probablyCovetousness, wanting that car,
that house, those clothes, thatwhatever is on your heart, and
it just keeps you focused onthat.
If I could just get that, if Icould just have that
(10:07):
covetousness.
It's really what you say wouldbe you're wanting what someone
else has that you don't have.
You want their car, you wanttheir house, you want whatever.
That's covetousness.
And then materialism.
There's a word we've heard.
It's simply the unsatisfieddesire to have more.
(10:29):
And it goes unsatisfied becausewe always want more and we want
more and we want more.
And then that phrase worldlydesire.
Worldly desire when we delightin our treasures more than God.
And when I was writing thosewords I thought well, that
(10:50):
sounds kind of old-fashioned.
And it might soundold-fashioned, really even out
of touch for many people, maybea lot of people talking about
those ideas.
But what do they do?
They reveal the critical issuesthat are going on inside of us,
in our heart, that we don'ttalk about, and more for sure we
(11:11):
won't admit.
And they keep us from theabundant life which Jesus is
talking about here.
So we make trade-offs, but wedon't know what we're trading
off.
Someone said the fight of faithis the fight to keep your heart
contented in Christ, to reallybelieve and keep on believing
that he will meet every need andsatisfy every longing.
(11:34):
Do you believe that?
Well, I'm hoping I'm going toconvince you a little bit of
that today.
This is what Jesus is going toconvince us of here and think
about.
Just keep in mind who hisaudience is.
Here he was speaking to peoplewho didn't have a lot.
These were probably poor people, and you get the idea sometimes
that people that Jesus spoke todidn't even know where their
(11:56):
next meal was coming from.
They just followed him aroundbecause he had the words of life
.
So these are probably not richpeople by our standards of life,
so these are probably not richpeople by our standards, and yet
Jesus is telling even themthese things.
How much more do we need tohear it in a culture like ours
and I thought about this.
(12:16):
So you know, wealth is relative,isn't it?
It's kind of like what may beconsidered wealthy by our
standards may, or someone else'sstandards may just be what we
need on a daily basis in ourculture.
For example, in some placesthere are people who and it's
(12:36):
like I'd love to have a car, andin that culture they either
walk or they ride bicycles right, and so we think a car is a
necessity, and maybe it is inour culture.
It's the way we get around.
How many of us would love towalk to work?
That'd be hard, wouldn't it?
(12:58):
It's funny what we deem wantsversus needs, isn't it?
And you know it's kind ofinteresting too.
It's like okay years ago, Ithink.
You know it's kind ofinteresting too.
It's like okay years ago, Ithink you know, when everybody
got cell phones.
It's like, wow, everybody wantsa cell phone.
You know, I don't think there'sprobably anywhere in the world
somebody I see people in thejungles of deep dark Africa who
(13:18):
have a cell phone.
It's like everybody's got acell phone.
What I'm saying, the point, isthat wealth is relative.
What's not relative is ourattitude toward it, and this is
what Jesus is going to get to.
So let's see what he has to sayto us this morning, what's
(13:38):
relevant for us to hear, andwhat does he do here?
He's basically given us thesewords in contrasting choices,
and he presents three of them.
There are two treasures, onearth and in heaven, two bodily
conditions light and darknessand then two masters God and
possessions.
And what Jesus says is make achoice, because you cannot sit
(14:02):
on the fence.
Let's look at it First of all.
Jesus presents us with a choice, because you cannot sit on the
fence.
Let's look at it First of all.
Jesus presents us with a choiceof treasures.
This is in verses 19 through 21.
And the first one is in verse19.
He says essentially stopaccumulating earthly treasures.
Here's the words Do not lay upfor yourselves treasures on
earth where moth and rustdestroy and where thieves break
(14:25):
in and steal.
And the verb tense there is.
Jesus is saying something inthe original that says You're
doing this, stop.
This is something they werealready doing.
He's telling them to ceasedoing it.
Stop doing this, stopaccumulating earthly treasures.
And you know, in that day peopledidn't have a closet full of
(14:47):
clothes like we do.
So when you think about what hesays here where a moth and rust
destroy, a moth eating a holein their clothes would be
disaster.
What if your whole closet fullof clothes got wiped out by some
insects?
This is what's in their mind.
Or he says or rust, rust theword here is the word for rot or
(15:11):
decay.
Because guess what If I left mylawnmower outside in the
weather?
Eventually I wouldn't have totouch it, but it would waste
completely away.
This is the nature of things.
Anything left to itselfdeteriorates.
Today, nothing we buy, thinkabout it.
Nothing we buy is made to last,and yet we put great, great
(15:36):
value on it.
What do they call that?
Planned obsolescence?
Is that what the term is.
Yeah, so there are no banks inthat day, and so we have places
to put our money.
But in that day, what do they do?
Well, he says there wherethieves break in and steal.
And that day, the way to putyour money away safely, they
(15:58):
would go along and find a place,walking along, and they'd dig a
hole in the ground and cover itup they knew where it was, but
hopefully nobody else did orthey would dig a hole in the
soft sides of the clay housesthey lived in and put it in the
walls.
And what he's saying.
That literally says wherethieves break through and steal.
So their worry was that thethief would get inside and steal
(16:23):
their life savings by diggingthrough the walls in their homes
.
And so there's this kind offear for all of us that what we
have we might lose.
So we got to protect it, andthat's probably true in our
culture.
But what is really?
(16:43):
What's Jesus getting at here?
It's not.
That's just kind of the surfacemeaning.
What is Jesus talking abouthere?
Oh, we know this.
He's not telling us that wecan't have nice things.
The Bible tells us that Jesus,or God, has provided everything
richly for us.
To what Enjoy.
(17:04):
He's not telling us weshouldn't have nice things.
He's also not saying that weshouldn't save for a rainy day.
You know, if you look throughthe Old Testament you see the
passage in Scripture that talksabout the ant.
It says go to the ant yousluggard, see how he gathers
food in the summer and he storesit away for the winter.
That's a principle for us.
(17:25):
So he's not saying don't savefor the rainy day.
And we're also told that we'realso to provide for our family.
If your family has a need,you're the one, if you're in the
family, to provide for them ifyou can.
And we have to save for thosekinds of things and help for
those kind of things.
So now Jesus is warning ussomething else.
(17:46):
He's warning us against findingour greatest satisfaction in
the things of this world.
And there are two reallypractical reasons for this.
He gives them to us.
Number one is earthly treasuresare unreliable and they're
easily lost.
I mean, you can lose yourwealth in a heartbeat if you're
(18:08):
not careful.
Proverbs 23, 4 and 5 says don'twear yourself out trying to get
rich.
Be wise enough to know when toquit and some people never know
when to quit In the blink of aneye.
(18:30):
It goes on to say wealthdisappears for it will sprout
wings and fly away like an eagle.
And how many people have losttheir fortunes?
And they didn't ever expect to?
Economic downturns, poorbusiness decisions, online fraud
which is a big deal nowadays,right or just simply basic
financial mismanagement.
(18:50):
All those things can happen andwe can lose our earthly wealth.
But Jesus said it's unreliableand it's easily lost.
There's another practicalreason Jesus tells us to stop
accumulating our earthlytreasures.
He says, secondly, materialwealth is worthless beyond this
life.
Luke 12, 16 through 21,.
(19:13):
Jesus tells a parable about aman who is building into and now
I'm not going to go through theread it for you, but he's
basically he's telling theparable and saying this guy is
into building bigger and biggerand better and better barns,
bigger and better barns, andhe's filling them up with all of
his treasure.
And God comes to him and saysyou don't know, your very life
(19:34):
is going to be required of youthis very night.
And what did he do?
He spent his life investinghere and he didn't have anything
for eternity.
Jesus' point is that you cannottake it with you, but you can
send it on ahead.
(19:54):
So wealth is temporal, it's noteternal.
This is what Jesus is gettingat.
He's trying to tell us thewisdom of making the right
choice here, and sometimes we'reso blind to this that we fail
to consider the eternal.
There's an old story about anold miser who called the doctor
(20:17):
and lawyer and minister who washis friends.
Three friends a doctor, a miser, or in, and lawyer and minister
, who were his friends.
Three friends a doctor, a miserand this lawyer and minister to
the deathbed.
He's about to die and he saidthey say you can't take it with
you, but I'm going to try.
So here are three envelopes andeach one of you I'm going to
give $30,000 to, and what I wantyou to do with the envelopes, I
(20:40):
want you, when I die and theylower my casket into the ground,
throw in the envelopes.
And when the old man died, sureenough, each one of those three
, they threw in the envelope asrequested.
But on the way home after thefuneral service, the minister
texted the other two andconfessed I needed the money for
(21:03):
the church.
So I took out $10,000 and threwonly $20,000 into the grave.
And the doctor read that and hetexted back.
I too have to confess, I'mbuilding a clinic.
He texts it back.
I too have to confess, I'mbuilding a clinic.
So I took out $20,000 and onlythrew in $10,000.
(21:26):
And the lawyer said and he readthat he said, gentlemen, I am
so ashamed of you, I threw in mycredit card for the whole
amount.
The old miser's fixation ontrying to have a scheme to get
his wealth to follow him didn'twork too well.
(21:49):
It didn't even work well evenat his own burial, because his
friends were so materialistic.
Stop accumulating earthlytreasures, j Jesus said.
Instead, what does he say?
Wisdom, start stockpilingheavenly treasures Verse 20,.
Lay up for yourselves treasuresin heaven.
(22:11):
Literally make a treasure foryourself.
Make a treasure for yourself.
Heavenly treasures are a wiserand more secure investment than
you might ever believe, whereneither moth nor rust destroys
and where thieves do not breakin and steal.
Jesus' examples that he's givenhere lead, I think, to a deeper
(22:36):
principle, which is what wemight call the treasure
principle.
It's in verse 21.
And he makes those examples andhe comes to say this.
He says why.
For where your treasure isverse 21, there your heart will
be also.
In other words, put yourtreasure in the right place in
the kingdom is what he's sayingand your heart will be in the
(22:57):
right place to live a life nowin a way that will pay off later
.
Here's the principle, this idea.
He's not just talking aboutmoney and wealth, he's talking
to me, he's giving us wisdomabout the right priorities and
he's basically saying your heartwill be wherever your treasure
(23:22):
is placed.
So if we put it in the wrongplace, it'll reveal itself.
And he uses that word treasurekind of in a really broad way.
We think of it always as aboutfinancial and money stuff.
It could include potentially alot of stuff that we call our
treasure Family, the position atyour job, artistic pursuits
(23:54):
that you have, relationshipsthat you think are so important
in comparison.
Maybe it's social media, andthat's where you put all your
time and attention.
It could even be a memory thatyou hold as your treasure.
If anything in the world iseverything to you, it is an
(24:15):
earthly treasure.
So what is your treasure?
The treasure is what you lovethe most.
Your treasure is what you lovethe most.
Your treasure is what you lovethe most.
What do you love the most thismorning?
Now, jesus moves on from achoice of treasures to a choice
of visions In verses 22 and 23,.
(24:37):
He says in verse 22, the eye isthe lamp of the body.
What an obscure line.
What an obscure statement.
Jesus is not giving us a lessonon ophthalmology.
He's not trying to tell us howto better read an eye chart at
the doctor's office.
This is not physical stuff.
He's talking in spiritual termsand he's using a metaphor from
(25:00):
their culture.
He's really referring to theway we see things, the way we
see life, the way we view lifeand what he's saying.
Just as your heart will followyour treasure, so also your body
, that is, your whole life, willfollow your eye.
When he's talking about hisheart, he's not talking about we
(25:22):
think of.
Well, the heart is theaffections he's talking about,
not just your affections.
He's talking about your wholelife and what your eye, if you
look at the things he's saying,your eye will follow.
Your body will follow what youreye is focused on.
So we're intended to understandhere that having the right
outlook on life.
(25:43):
It enables us to orientourselves in the right way, and
the opposite is true.
If you're focused, if youroutlook on life is not in the
right way, it's not aligned towhat Jesus teaches.
Guess what You're going to beliving a life of darkness.
(26:03):
Now think about that.
Because you use that idea of aneye, you could have a cataract,
you could have floaters, youcould have problems in your eye,
and those could be fixed by thedoctor.
But this spiritual problem,there's only one doctor that can
fix that.
His name is Jesus.
(26:23):
It's a spiritual vision and ouroutlook on life will determine
the direction of our life.
It's so interesting to me howso many times we get our outlook
our philosophy of life is aboutthe values of certain things
here and we get ourselves caughtup in so many problems.
(26:44):
The Scripture says the love ofmoney is the root of all evil.
No, it doesn't say that.
It says the love of money isthe root of all kinds of evil.
So it is a danger for us.
If we have our focus in thewrong place, we're going to live
lives that will really bedisoriented and going in the
wrong direction, and you don'tthink that happens.
(27:05):
It happens a lot, but he saysso.
If your eye is healthy, yourwhole body will be full of light
.
In other words, you're going tohave an enlightened sense of
the direction you should take inlife, because your treasure is
in the right place.
But if your eye is bad, yourwhole body will be full of
darkness.
If, then, the light in you isdarkness, how great is that
(27:25):
darkness?
So, these two perspectives onthe eye, there's what he calls
here the healthy eye.
That's verse 22.
And this is an interesting word,because if your eye is healthy
it might not be the besttranslation it can mean generous
, literally.
If your eye is generous, if youwell, I'll give you a reference
(27:48):
Proverbs 22, 9.
Whoever has a good eye will beblessed, for he shares his bread
with the poor, and so what youhave, if you have a generous eye
, is you live with open-handedliberality to people.
Sometimes we're so tight-fistedwith what we have, god has to
pry our fingers off of it.
And then what it is?
(28:09):
It's really painful when welose it.
So it could be generous.
The other word it can mean andit typically means this is
single.
If your eye is single and youhave these varying translations
when you look at it, it's eithergenerous or single, sometimes
healthy, but single it's theidea of being single-minded in
(28:30):
your focus, focused on one thing.
Or we could put it like do youhave one passion in your life
that you're focused on?
And Jesus says, as we'll findthere's only one that we're to
have and it's Jesus.
You know, I was interested inhow this kind of came to me this
(28:52):
week because my littletwo-year-old granddaughter my
wife will kill me because Idon't have it exactly right.
Two-year-old granddaughter mywife will kill me because I
don't have it exactly right, butshe is.
Ever since she was able to sortof start talking, she has been
focused on fire hydrants and Ithought why is that?
Well, maybe they're about herheight, you know.
(29:13):
And so everywhere we go it'slike hydrant, hydrant.
There's a hydrant, you know,and we were driving down the
road just the other day andshe's pointing out hydrants
everywhere.
That's all she sees.
And I said her name's Lily andI said Lily, you have such a
good eye and I thought how truethat is.
(29:36):
When our eye is single, we seeJesus as the most valuable thing
to our lives.
That's all we see.
The picture here you can seehow thrilled she is with her
hydrant.
The neighbor across the streetfrom where they lived got wind
of her focus on hydrants and sothey went out and decorated the
(30:02):
hydrant in her neighborhood andhad her pose for this picture
and she's absolutely thrilled.
That's a good eye focused onthe right thing.
And then Jesus talks about thebad eye, and you might think of
the bad, the unhealthy, thediseased eye.
He ends up saying people withthat kind of vision, that kind
(30:24):
of outlook, that kind of focuscan't see, can't see much at all
.
They're clearly blind.
David Brooks, in a 2023 articlein the Atlantic entitled how
America Got Mean that's anintriguing title, isn't it?
How America Got Mean makes thisobservation we're enmeshed in
(30:46):
some sort of emotional,relational and spiritual crisis,
and it undergirds our politicaldysfunction and the general
crises of our democracy.
What is going on, he's, of ourdemocracy.
What is going on?
Over the past few years,different social observers have
offered different stories toexplain the rise of hatred,
(31:08):
anxiety and despair.
So he's looking out on ourculture and he says what is
going on.
And so he goes on to touch on avariety of proposed answers
from people who were supposedexperts, from technology to
sociology, from demographics toeconomics.
And these answers, he said,well, they may have something to
do with it, maybe have ameasure of influence, but he
(31:32):
writes something beyond thisthat I think really touches on
the biblical narrative and theway the Bible teaches us about
what's going on.
He writes, our society hasbecome one in which people feel
licensed to give theirselfishness free reign.
We live in a society that'sterrible at moral formation.
(31:52):
Moral formation, as I will usethat stuffy sounding term here,
comprises three things First,helping people learn to restrain
their selfishness.
Second, teaching basic socialand ethical skills.
And third, helping people finda purpose in life.
Morally formative institutionshold up a set of ideals and I
(32:18):
thought, god, that's why we'rehere, that's why the church is
here.
And is it a statement againsthow poorly we have done this of
late?
You know?
Because the culture's valueshave spread into the church and
(32:44):
this is now needed to beretaught to us as Christians,
who would have thought what arewe talking about?
Nothing less than the gospel ofthe kingdom.
Our eye needs to be madehealthy again.
(33:05):
So now Jesus goes on to thecore issue, which is our last
thing, and what is he doing?
I felt like this, even for me.
I just thought, okay, and thisis a good thing, every time a
preacher preaches, it ought togo through him.
I was discouraged this way.
I was like Lord, you're talkingto me, you're stepping on my
(33:27):
toes, and so Jesus has gonethrough this kind of stepping on
our toes from the little toeall the way now to the big toe.
And this is the bottom line.
He's telling us to choose theright treasure, then choose the
right vision and now to choosethe right loyalties Verse 24,.
(33:48):
No one can serve two masters,for either he will hate the one
and love the other, or he willbe devoted to the one and
despise the other.
And I think Jesus just knew theemotional bond that wealth and
money has on us.
And there's a spiritualconnection between our money
(34:13):
sometimes and what God haswanted to show us here, how we
think about money.
You know, I don't know aboutyou, but I've been involved in a
few settling of wills over theyears and I've been amazed at
(34:36):
what sometimes normal peacefulpeople will turn into sometimes
from Jekyll to Hyde, when moneybecomes the subject.
I got to get mine.
Maybe you've been a part of oneof those.
See, the question is do youpossess treasures or do the
(34:56):
treasures possess you?
And the danger for us is thatwe let the pursuit of what we
deem our treasure to reallysubstitute for our pursuit of
God.
You know what the Bible callsthat Idolatry, calls that
(35:25):
Idolatry Our treasure becomesour substitute for the thing we
should love the most.
He says you cannot serve God inmoney.
He doesn't say you should nottry.
He says you cannot serve God inmoney.
Why?
Because, ultimately, this is amatter of worship.
Why?
Because, ultimately, this is amatter of worship.
It's a matter of worship.
You have to choose.
Because why Jesus won't competewith lesser loyalties, lesser
(35:55):
gods, money?
I've figured this Money is agood servant but a poor master,
and so what he's telling us is,instead of letting it be your
master, make money your servant.
In fact, he says that in Luke 16.
He says go out and use yourmoney to buy friends for the
kingdom.
Don't let it be your master.
(36:17):
There's only one of me.
Don't let it be your master.
There's only one of me.
Well, I want to finish up bydrawing our attention to a
couple of short, really shortparables that he talks about
later in the Gospel of Matthew,and they kind of emphasize the
(36:37):
incomparable value of eternallife and the kingdom of God.
Listen to these.
Jesus said the kingdom ofheaven is like treasure hidden
in a field which a man found andcovered up.
Then, in his joy, he goes andsells all that he has and buys
that field Again, the kingdom ofheaven is like a merchant in
(36:59):
search of fine pearls who, onfinding one pearl of great price
, went and sold all that he hadand bought it.
And so the true riches thatChrist offers us, they're not
material, they're spiritual,they're not temporary, they're
(37:20):
eternal.
A number of years ago you know,it's kind of like, I think, of
the scripture, it's like fromthe mouth of infants, you have
ordained praise, the Bible says.
And years ago, when my youngestdaughter was, we were sitting
around, I remember, downstairson the couch and I think we were
(37:42):
just, we were talking aboutJesus.
And at the end of ourconversation and she's like
three years old she looked overat my wife and I and she said
Jesus is our greatest treasure.
And I looked at my wife and shelooked at me, me and I was like
that was a God thing, jesus isour greatest treasure.
(38:06):
And to those with spiritualeyes, jesus is our greatest
treasure.
The problem is with so many wenever buy into that truth.
But this is true wisdom thatJesus has given us here today.
Let me kind of tell you howJesus is our treasure and we'll
(38:28):
end here in just a moment.
Several places in Scripturewhere Jesus is talked about.
In this way, the unsearchableriches of Christ cannot be fully
searched out because, it says,in Christ all the fullness of
the deity dwells in bodily form.
(38:48):
So the riches of Christ includethink about it all that God is.
The unsearchable riches includethe wisdom of God, the glory of
God, the truth of God, the lifeof God and the love of God.
(39:10):
The Bible says in Christ Godhas blessed us in the heavenly
realms with every spiritualblessing.
The Bible says in Christ arehidden all the treasures of
wisdom and knowledge.
And the Bible says in ChristGod has given us everything we
need for a godly life.
(39:31):
That's a lot of treasure and wehaven't even scratched the
surface.
So how do you measure yourtreasure?
How do you know where yourtreasure is?
How do you measure it?
That's just a question of whatbrings you the most pleasure.
(39:54):
Let me read this again thekingdom of heaven is like
treasure hidden in a field whicha man found and covered up.
Then I hope you didn't missthis.
Then in his joy it says he goesand sells all that he has and
buys the field.
He is thrilled to transfer hisearthly wealth to pursue
(40:14):
something that is eternal.
John Piper wrote this makespleasure also the whistleblower
of your heart.
If something sinful gives youpleasure, it's not a pleasure
problem, it's a treasure problem.
Your pleasure mechanism islikely functioning just fine.
(40:37):
It's what you love.
That's out of whack andpleasure is outing you.
Pleasure is the meter in yourheart that measures how valuable
, how precious someone orsomething is to you.
Pleasure is the measure of yourtreasure, and Jesus ends his
(40:59):
part there on.
Where is your treasure?
I want to ask you this morning,let's just take a minute here,
because I feel like the HolySpirit has already pinpointed
something, or someone who hastaken the place of Jesus, has
taken the place of God, and I'mgoing to have Zach come up and
(41:20):
just play just for a minute.
This looks like oh, you'vechanged your appearance, zach.
Okay, so you're, I swapped.
So thank you, tyler.
If God has spoken to you, if theHoly Spirit has spoken to you
about where your heart lies,that you have placed value in
(41:43):
something else other than Jesusthis is for Christians then I
want you to come down and justwith your coming down, just give
that back to Jesus and just sayJesus, I take you for my
(42:04):
treasure.
It's really simple.
I mean, you're not doing thisfor me.
You're doing this as God hasspoken to you.
You looking for some othertreasure in your life, something
more valuable than Jesus.
So right now, as Tyler plays,would you make that transaction
(42:26):
with the Lord?
And then this is for those whodon't know Jesus If you've never
trusted Christ, you've neverseen him as someone who is worth
(42:48):
trading this life for eternity.
For it's real simple.
Jesus just says.
He says confess your sins, knowthat you have sinned and he has
died for your sins.
He died on the cross to takeaway your sins and he will give
(43:09):
you eternal life.
It's just a simple thing, asimple act of faith that you
come and you say Jesus, I wantyou instead of me in my life.
Would you just give your lifeto Jesus this morning?
We're going to take just aminute.
(43:29):
Anybody who wants to come,let's do business with the Lord
this morning.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
Thank you, jesus, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen,
amen, amen, Amen, amen, amen,amen, amen, amen, amen, amen,
amen, amen, amen, amen, amen,amen, amen, amen, amen, amen,
(44:21):
amen.
Kelly Kinder (44:21):
Amen, amen, amen.
At the end of our time today,there'll be people down here.
If you didn't make a decisionright now, didn't want to do
that right now, there'll bepeople here who would love to
share how you can know Jesus.
And if there's any otherprayers, there'll be a prayer
team down here today to pray foryou.
We always love to do thisbecause you know the Bible says
(44:45):
don't go to the Word, don't hearthe Word, like you're looking
at yourself in the mirror.
Sometimes we go to the mirrorand the Bible makes this analogy
we turn right around, we forgetwhat we look like and I believe
God has shown many of us heretoday what we look like.
So do business with him thisweek.
Father, we thank you for yourword this morning.
(45:08):
We ask you, lord, to applythese truths to our heart.
Lord, that we would find in youour greatest treasure.
We pray this in Jesus' name,amen.
I'm so excited.
We've been continuing in ourseries on the book of Matthew on
the Sermon on the Mount, calledRed Letters, and I'm just
thrilled to get to be able to dothis.
It's Jesus' sermon that hepreached there to a group of
people that were reallychallenged by his message, and
so we're also challenged by it.
(00:24):
I think most of us.
If we read it and take itseriously, we just think of the
things that this message todaywe're going to be talking about.
Where is your treasure?
Where is your treasure?
And it's a good question.
We all need to answer thatquestion.
Miss Bertha Adams was 71 yearsold when she died alone in West
Palm Beach, florida, back in1976.
(00:46):
And the coroner's report readcause of death malnutrition and
after wasting away to 50 pounds,she could no longer stay alive.
That's pretty serious.
They found a veritable pig penthe biggest mess you can imagine
, they wrote.
One seasoned inspector declaredhe had never seen a dwelling in
(01:08):
greater disarray.
Bertha had begged for food ather neighbor's doors and had
gotten what clothes she had fromthe Salvation Army.
From all appearances she was apenniless recluse, a pitiful and
forgotten widow, but such wasnot the case.
Amid the jumble of her filthy,disheveled belongings were found
(01:32):
two keys to a safe deposit boxat two different local banks.
The discovery was unbelievable.
The first box contained over700 AT&T stock certificates,
plus hundreds of other valuablenotes, bonds and solid financial
securities, not to mention cashamounting to $200,000.
(01:54):
The second box had nocertificates, just cash $600,000
to be exact.
Bertha Adams was amultimillionaire, and then some.
She yet died of starvation.
Her case was even more tragic,I guess, if she was destitute
spiritually.
(02:14):
Her story is kind of an extremeexample of a distorted value
system, and we want to talkabout that today.
Our consumer society you seeit's kind of like drives us to
get more, have more, buy more,doesn't it that we think that
life consists of what we have,our possessions?
(02:35):
And Jesus comes along and hesays something different.
This Sermon on the Mount is, Iguess you could say, as people
call it, an ethical sermon.
It's Jesus' ethics of thekingdom, and there's a
distinction here between what wemight say is the kingdom of
self versus what Jesus offershere, where morality is often
(03:02):
defined as whatever feels rightto me.
We're living in a society thathas the morality based on
whatever feels right to meversus the kingdom of God which
Jesus is going to tell us abouttoday.
But one thing is certain, Iknow this, that the gospel, it
really upsets our value systemand we've gone through this
(03:24):
passage where Jesus says youhave heard it said, but I say to
you you have heard it said, butI say to you, and today he's
going to challenge our valuesystem and I think, while we
know that, as Christians, thetug is so strong for us to say
no to the, to the buy me nowculture.
Really, what we're talkingabout is how Jesus wants us to
(03:45):
say no to the buy-me-now culture.
Really, what we're talkingabout is how Jesus wants us to
live for one person and that'shim.
Chuck Colson, way back in 1991,made me think of this, this idea
between ethics and morality.
Chuck Colson, if you rememberhim, if you're old enough to
remember him, he was involved asa cabinet member in the Nixon
administration, presidentNixon's administration, and the
(04:08):
result of that was, as many ofyou know, was the Watergate
scandal, and back then it was apretty big deal.
I don't know that it comparesanything with what's going on
today, but Chuck Colson wasbasically convicted of the
crimes that he was involved inin the Watergate scandal.
He was put in prison and hespent a number of years there
(04:30):
and during the prison time heactually came to Christ.
He became a Christian and hekind of, for that time after
that, began to teach and preachabout what God had shown him, as
he had changed his value system.
And he discussed the differenceback in 1991 at a lecture at the
Harvard Business School.
(04:51):
And they tell the lecturer whyHarvard can't teach ethics.
And he argues that ethics, hesays, is rooted in a
transcendent moral order, whilemorals are more subjective and
influenced by societal andindividual beliefs.
(05:12):
So in other words, morals arewhat is so it's what you see but
ethics are what ought to be.
So essentially we have, I think, in our society so rejected the
truths of Scripture that ournation has essentially become
demoralized.
So when truth is rejected orit's put down, it's made less
(05:34):
than what it should be.
Guess what we have?
We have cultural chaos, becausenobody knows which end is up.
And as the Old Testamentdescribed those who lived in
that day like this they did whatwas right in their own eyes,
everybody did what was right intheir own eyes.
And so, if you haven't realizedit by now, we're living in a
(05:57):
culture whose value system ismore distorted and perverted
than I think I've ever seen inour history.
So what are values?
Values are fundamental beliefsthat guide us or motivate us to
think.
That is our attitudes and howwe live, that is our behaviors.
Values are like I guess you'dsay they're like our moral
(06:19):
compass, and so if our life isaligned with Jesus' values,
guess what we're going to?
Our moral compass is going topoint us always to the right
thing.
It's kind of what Cody saidthis morning.
We had really two othermessages this morning, derek and
Abby and Cody, so we're justthankful for what God is going
(06:42):
to show us this morning.
I hope you'll be listening.
Let's kind of look at thisMatthew 7, 24.
I just want to remind you thescripture.
We're going to look at chapter6 of Matthew, but I want to go
back to what really the thrustof this whole sermon is about,
and I said this last time when Ispoke Matthew 7, 24.
Matthew 7, 24, everyone thenwho hears these words of mine
(07:06):
and does them will be like awise man who built his house on
the rock.
So, with these words in ringingin our ears, let's look at
Matthew 6.
We're going to look at verses19 through 24.
Where is your treasure?
Jesus speaking, do not lay upfor yourselves treasures on
earth, where moth and rustdestroy and where thieves break
(07:29):
in and steal, but lay up foryourselves treasures in heaven,
where neither moth nor rustdestroys and where thieves do
not break in and steal, forwhere your treasure is there,
your heart will be also.
The eye is the lamp of the body, so if your eye is healthy,
your whole body will be full oflight, but if your eye is bad,
(07:53):
your whole body will be full ofdarkness.
If, then, the light in you isdarkness, how great is that
darkness?
No one can serve two masters,for either he will hate the one
and love the other, or he willbe devoted to the one and
despise the other.
You cannot serve God and money.
(08:15):
Let's pray, father, spirit ofGod, lord, we ask that you would
open the Scripture today.
Lord, as we hear your words,lord, we ask that you would open
the scripture today, lord, aswe hear your words, lord, we ask
that you would leave no area ofour lives that would keep us
from following you.
With a whole heart, lord, Ijust pray that we would be like
(08:38):
those first servants who weretold Lord do whatever he tells
you.
And when they obeyed you turnedwater into wine.
So, lord, transform us by yourWord today.
Speak to us, holy Spirit, inJesus' name, amen.
(09:00):
Let me just say up front, really, just so you don't get the idea
, because when you hear thetitle when is your Treasure?
You may think this is a sermonabout money.
That's part of it, but reallythis is not about wealth.
Primarily.
It's really about what we wouldsay is our ability to follow
Christ.
It's about absolutediscipleship.
So, jesus' words, if you, wewhat he's saying here.
(09:26):
They cover a lot of issues ofthe heart which we don't have to
count time to cover all these,but let me just kind of mention
them because the tendency, as Isaid, is to live for the here
and now.
It's what we see.
We have blinders on and that'sthe mentality of getting all you
can and canning all you get.
(09:47):
We have words for it.
You've heard them probablyCovetousness, wanting that car,
that house, those clothes, thatwhatever is on your heart, and
it just keeps you focused onthat.
If I could just get that, if Icould just have that
(10:07):
covetousness.
It's really what you say wouldbe you're wanting what someone
else has that you don't have.
You want their car, you wanttheir house, you want whatever.
That's covetousness.
And then materialism.
There's a word we've heard.
It's simply the unsatisfieddesire to have more.
(10:29):
And it goes unsatisfied becausewe always want more and we want
more and we want more.
And then that phrase worldlydesire.
Worldly desire when we delightin our treasures more than God.
And when I was writing thosewords I thought well, that
(10:50):
sounds kind of old-fashioned.
And it might soundold-fashioned, really even out
of touch for many people, maybea lot of people talking about
those ideas.
But what do they do?
They reveal the critical issuesthat are going on inside of us,
in our heart, that we don'ttalk about, and more for sure we
(11:11):
won't admit.
And they keep us from theabundant life which Jesus is
talking about here.
So we make trade-offs, but wedon't know what we're trading
off.
Someone said the fight of faithis the fight to keep your heart
contented in Christ, to reallybelieve and keep on believing
that he will meet every need andsatisfy every longing.
(11:34):
Do you believe that?
Well, I'm hoping I'm going toconvince you a little bit of
that today.
This is what Jesus is going toconvince us of here and think
about.
Just keep in mind who hisaudience is.
Here he was speaking to peoplewho didn't have a lot.
These were probably poor people, and you get the idea sometimes
that people that Jesus spoke todidn't even know where their
(11:56):
next meal was coming from.
They just followed him aroundbecause he had the words of life
.
So these are probably not richpeople by our standards of life,
so these are probably not richpeople by our standards, and yet
Jesus is telling even themthese things.
How much more do we need tohear it in a culture like ours
and I thought about this.
(12:16):
So you know, wealth is relative,isn't it?
It's kind of like what may beconsidered wealthy by our
standards may, or someone else'sstandards may just be what we
need on a daily basis in ourculture.
For example, in some placesthere are people who and it's
(12:36):
like I'd love to have a car, andin that culture they either
walk or they ride bicycles right, and so we think a car is a
necessity, and maybe it is inour culture.
It's the way we get around.
How many of us would love towalk to work?
That'd be hard, wouldn't it?
(12:58):
It's funny what we deem wantsversus needs, isn't it?
And you know it's kind ofinteresting too.
It's like okay years ago, Ithink.
You know it's kind ofinteresting too.
It's like okay years ago, Ithink you know, when everybody
got cell phones.
It's like, wow, everybody wantsa cell phone.
You know, I don't think there'sprobably anywhere in the world
somebody I see people in thejungles of deep dark Africa who
(13:18):
have a cell phone.
It's like everybody's got acell phone.
What I'm saying, the point, isthat wealth is relative.
What's not relative is ourattitude toward it, and this is
what Jesus is going to get to.
So let's see what he has to sayto us this morning, what's
(13:38):
relevant for us to hear, andwhat does he do here?
He's basically given us thesewords in contrasting choices,
and he presents three of them.
There are two treasures, onearth and in heaven, two bodily
conditions light and darknessand then two masters God and
possessions.
And what Jesus says is make achoice, because you cannot sit
(14:02):
on the fence.
Let's look at it First of all.
Jesus presents us with a choice, because you cannot sit on the
fence.
Let's look at it First of all.
Jesus presents us with a choiceof treasures.
This is in verses 19 through 21.
And the first one is in verse19.
He says essentially stopaccumulating earthly treasures.
Here's the words Do not lay upfor yourselves treasures on
earth where moth and rustdestroy and where thieves break
(14:25):
in and steal.
And the verb tense there is.
Jesus is saying something inthe original that says You're
doing this, stop.
This is something they werealready doing.
He's telling them to ceasedoing it.
Stop doing this, stopaccumulating earthly treasures.
And you know, in that day peopledidn't have a closet full of
(14:47):
clothes like we do.
So when you think about what hesays here where a moth and rust
destroy, a moth eating a holein their clothes would be
disaster.
What if your whole closet fullof clothes got wiped out by some
insects?
This is what's in their mind.
Or he says or rust, rust theword here is the word for rot or
(15:11):
decay.
Because guess what If I left mylawnmower outside in the
weather?
Eventually I wouldn't have totouch it, but it would waste
completely away.
This is the nature of things.
Anything left to itselfdeteriorates.
Today, nothing we buy, thinkabout it.
Nothing we buy is made to last,and yet we put great, great
(15:36):
value on it.
What do they call that?
Planned obsolescence?
Is that what the term is.
Yeah, so there are no banks inthat day, and so we have places
to put our money.
But in that day, what do they do?
Well, he says there wherethieves break in and steal.
And that day, the way to putyour money away safely, they
(15:58):
would go along and find a place,walking along, and they'd dig a
hole in the ground and cover itup they knew where it was, but
hopefully nobody else did orthey would dig a hole in the
soft sides of the clay housesthey lived in and put it in the
walls.
And what he's saying.
That literally says wherethieves break through and steal.
So their worry was that thethief would get inside and steal
(16:23):
their life savings by diggingthrough the walls in their homes
.
And so there's this kind offear for all of us that what we
have we might lose.
So we got to protect it, andthat's probably true in our
culture.
But what is really?
(16:43):
What's Jesus getting at here?
It's not.
That's just kind of the surfacemeaning.
What is Jesus talking abouthere?
Oh, we know this.
He's not telling us that wecan't have nice things.
The Bible tells us that Jesus,or God, has provided everything
richly for us.
To what Enjoy.
(17:04):
He's not telling us weshouldn't have nice things.
He's also not saying that weshouldn't save for a rainy day.
You know, if you look throughthe Old Testament you see the
passage in Scripture that talksabout the ant.
It says go to the ant yousluggard, see how he gathers
food in the summer and he storesit away for the winter.
That's a principle for us.
(17:25):
So he's not saying don't savefor the rainy day.
And we're also told that we'realso to provide for our family.
If your family has a need,you're the one, if you're in the
family, to provide for them ifyou can.
And we have to save for thosekinds of things and help for
those kind of things.
So now Jesus is warning ussomething else.
(17:46):
He's warning us against findingour greatest satisfaction in
the things of this world.
And there are two reallypractical reasons for this.
He gives them to us.
Number one is earthly treasuresare unreliable and they're
easily lost.
I mean, you can lose yourwealth in a heartbeat if you're
(18:08):
not careful.
Proverbs 23, 4 and 5 says don'twear yourself out trying to get
rich.
Be wise enough to know when toquit and some people never know
when to quit In the blink of aneye.
(18:30):
It goes on to say wealthdisappears for it will sprout
wings and fly away like an eagle.
And how many people have losttheir fortunes?
And they didn't ever expect to?
Economic downturns, poorbusiness decisions, online fraud
which is a big deal nowadays,right or just simply basic
financial mismanagement.
(18:50):
All those things can happen andwe can lose our earthly wealth.
But Jesus said it's unreliableand it's easily lost.
There's another practicalreason Jesus tells us to stop
accumulating our earthlytreasures.
He says, secondly, materialwealth is worthless beyond this
life.
Luke 12, 16 through 21,.
(19:13):
Jesus tells a parable about aman who is building into and now
I'm not going to go through theread it for you, but he's
basically he's telling theparable and saying this guy is
into building bigger and biggerand better and better barns,
bigger and better barns, andhe's filling them up with all of
his treasure.
And God comes to him and saysyou don't know, your very life
(19:34):
is going to be required of youthis very night.
And what did he do?
He spent his life investinghere and he didn't have anything
for eternity.
Jesus' point is that you cannottake it with you, but you can
send it on ahead.
(19:54):
So wealth is temporal, it's noteternal.
This is what Jesus is gettingat.
He's trying to tell us thewisdom of making the right
choice here, and sometimes we'reso blind to this that we fail
to consider the eternal.
There's an old story about anold miser who called the doctor
(20:17):
and lawyer and minister who washis friends.
Three friends a doctor, a miser, or in, and lawyer and minister
, who were his friends.
Three friends a doctor, a miserand this lawyer and minister to
the deathbed.
He's about to die and he saidthey say you can't take it with
you, but I'm going to try.
So here are three envelopes andeach one of you I'm going to
give $30,000 to, and what I wantyou to do with the envelopes, I
(20:40):
want you, when I die and theylower my casket into the ground,
throw in the envelopes.
And when the old man died, sureenough, each one of those three
, they threw in the envelope asrequested.
But on the way home after thefuneral service, the minister
texted the other two andconfessed I needed the money for
(21:03):
the church.
So I took out $10,000 and threwonly $20,000 into the grave.
And the doctor read that and hetexted back.
I too have to confess, I'mbuilding a clinic.
He texts it back.
I too have to confess, I'mbuilding a clinic.
So I took out $20,000 and onlythrew in $10,000.
(21:26):
And the lawyer said and he readthat he said, gentlemen, I am
so ashamed of you, I threw in mycredit card for the whole
amount.
The old miser's fixation ontrying to have a scheme to get
his wealth to follow him didn'twork too well.
(21:49):
It didn't even work well evenat his own burial, because his
friends were so materialistic.
Stop accumulating earthlytreasures, j Jesus said.
Instead, what does he say?
Wisdom, start stockpilingheavenly treasures Verse 20,.
Lay up for yourselves treasuresin heaven.
(22:11):
Literally make a treasure foryourself.
Make a treasure for yourself.
Heavenly treasures are a wiserand more secure investment than
you might ever believe, whereneither moth nor rust destroys
and where thieves do not breakin and steal.
Jesus' examples that he's givenhere lead, I think, to a deeper
(22:36):
principle, which is what wemight call the treasure
principle.
It's in verse 21.
And he makes those examples andhe comes to say this.
He says why.
For where your treasure isverse 21, there your heart will
be also.
In other words, put yourtreasure in the right place in
the kingdom is what he's sayingand your heart will be in the
(22:57):
right place to live a life nowin a way that will pay off later
.
Here's the principle, this idea.
He's not just talking aboutmoney and wealth, he's talking
to me, he's giving us wisdomabout the right priorities and
he's basically saying your heartwill be wherever your treasure
(23:22):
is placed.
So if we put it in the wrongplace, it'll reveal itself.
And he uses that word treasurekind of in a really broad way.
We think of it always as aboutfinancial and money stuff.
It could include potentially alot of stuff that we call our
treasure Family, the position atyour job, artistic pursuits
(23:54):
that you have, relationshipsthat you think are so important
in comparison.
Maybe it's social media, andthat's where you put all your
time and attention.
It could even be a memory thatyou hold as your treasure.
If anything in the world iseverything to you, it is an
(24:15):
earthly treasure.
So what is your treasure?
The treasure is what you lovethe most.
Your treasure is what you lovethe most.
Your treasure is what you lovethe most.
What do you love the most thismorning?
Now, jesus moves on from achoice of treasures to a choice
of visions In verses 22 and 23,.
(24:37):
He says in verse 22, the eye isthe lamp of the body.
What an obscure line.
What an obscure statement.
Jesus is not giving us a lessonon ophthalmology.
He's not trying to tell us howto better read an eye chart at
the doctor's office.
This is not physical stuff.
He's talking in spiritual termsand he's using a metaphor from
(25:00):
their culture.
He's really referring to theway we see things, the way we
see life, the way we view lifeand what he's saying.
Just as your heart will followyour treasure, so also your body
, that is, your whole life, willfollow your eye.
When he's talking about hisheart, he's not talking about we
(25:22):
think of.
Well, the heart is theaffections he's talking about,
not just your affections.
He's talking about your wholelife and what your eye, if you
look at the things he's saying,your eye will follow.
Your body will follow what youreye is focused on.
So we're intended to understandhere that having the right
outlook on life.
(25:43):
It enables us to orientourselves in the right way, and
the opposite is true.
If you're focused, if youroutlook on life is not in the
right way, it's not aligned towhat Jesus teaches.
Guess what You're going to beliving a life of darkness.
(26:03):
Now think about that.
Because you use that idea of aneye, you could have a cataract,
you could have floaters, youcould have problems in your eye,
and those could be fixed by thedoctor.
But this spiritual problem,there's only one doctor that can
fix that.
His name is Jesus.
(26:23):
It's a spiritual vision and ouroutlook on life will determine
the direction of our life.
It's so interesting to me howso many times we get our outlook
our philosophy of life is aboutthe values of certain things
here and we get ourselves caughtup in so many problems.
(26:44):
The Scripture says the love ofmoney is the root of all evil.
No, it doesn't say that.
It says the love of money isthe root of all kinds of evil.
So it is a danger for us.
If we have our focus in thewrong place, we're going to live
lives that will really bedisoriented and going in the
wrong direction, and you don'tthink that happens.
(27:05):
It happens a lot, but he saysso.
If your eye is healthy, yourwhole body will be full of light
.
In other words, you're going tohave an enlightened sense of
the direction you should take inlife, because your treasure is
in the right place.
But if your eye is bad, yourwhole body will be full of
darkness.
If, then, the light in you isdarkness, how great is that
(27:25):
darkness?
So, these two perspectives onthe eye, there's what he calls
here the healthy eye.
That's verse 22.
And this is an interesting word,because if your eye is healthy
it might not be the besttranslation it can mean generous
, literally.
If your eye is generous, if youwell, I'll give you a reference
(27:48):
Proverbs 22, 9.
Whoever has a good eye will beblessed, for he shares his bread
with the poor, and so what youhave, if you have a generous eye
, is you live with open-handedliberality to people.
Sometimes we're so tight-fistedwith what we have, god has to
pry our fingers off of it.
And then what it is?
(28:09):
It's really painful when welose it.
So it could be generous.
The other word it can mean andit typically means this is
single.
If your eye is single and youhave these varying translations
when you look at it, it's eithergenerous or single, sometimes
healthy, but single it's theidea of being single-minded in
(28:30):
your focus, focused on one thing.
Or we could put it like do youhave one passion in your life
that you're focused on?
And Jesus says, as we'll findthere's only one that we're to
have and it's Jesus.
You know, I was interested inhow this kind of came to me this
(28:52):
week because my littletwo-year-old granddaughter my
wife will kill me because Idon't have it exactly right.
Two-year-old granddaughter mywife will kill me because I
don't have it exactly right, butshe is.
Ever since she was able to sortof start talking, she has been
focused on fire hydrants and Ithought why is that?
Well, maybe they're about herheight, you know.
(29:13):
And so everywhere we go it'slike hydrant, hydrant.
There's a hydrant, you know,and we were driving down the
road just the other day andshe's pointing out hydrants
everywhere.
That's all she sees.
And I said her name's Lily andI said Lily, you have such a
good eye and I thought how truethat is.
(29:36):
When our eye is single, we seeJesus as the most valuable thing
to our lives.
That's all we see.
The picture here you can seehow thrilled she is with her
hydrant.
The neighbor across the streetfrom where they lived got wind
of her focus on hydrants and sothey went out and decorated the
(30:02):
hydrant in her neighborhood andhad her pose for this picture
and she's absolutely thrilled.
That's a good eye focused onthe right thing.
And then Jesus talks about thebad eye, and you might think of
the bad, the unhealthy, thediseased eye.
He ends up saying people withthat kind of vision, that kind
(30:24):
of outlook, that kind of focuscan't see, can't see much at all
.
They're clearly blind.
David Brooks, in a 2023 articlein the Atlantic entitled how
America Got Mean that's anintriguing title, isn't it?
How America Got Mean makes thisobservation we're enmeshed in
(30:46):
some sort of emotional,relational and spiritual crisis,
and it undergirds our politicaldysfunction and the general
crises of our democracy.
What is going on, he's, of ourdemocracy.
What is going on?
Over the past few years,different social observers have
offered different stories toexplain the rise of hatred,
(31:08):
anxiety and despair.
So he's looking out on ourculture and he says what is
going on.
And so he goes on to touch on avariety of proposed answers
from people who were supposedexperts, from technology to
sociology, from demographics toeconomics.
And these answers, he said,well, they may have something to
do with it, maybe have ameasure of influence, but he
(31:32):
writes something beyond thisthat I think really touches on
the biblical narrative and theway the Bible teaches us about
what's going on.
He writes, our society hasbecome one in which people feel
licensed to give theirselfishness free reign.
We live in a society that'sterrible at moral formation.
(31:52):
Moral formation, as I will usethat stuffy sounding term here,
comprises three things First,helping people learn to restrain
their selfishness.
Second, teaching basic socialand ethical skills.
And third, helping people finda purpose in life.
Morally formative institutionshold up a set of ideals and I
(32:18):
thought, god, that's why we'rehere, that's why the church is
here.
And is it a statement againsthow poorly we have done this of
late?
You know?
Because the culture's valueshave spread into the church and
(32:44):
this is now needed to beretaught to us as Christians,
who would have thought what arewe talking about?
Nothing less than the gospel ofthe kingdom.
Our eye needs to be madehealthy again.
(33:05):
So now Jesus goes on to thecore issue, which is our last
thing, and what is he doing?
I felt like this, even for me.
I just thought, okay, and thisis a good thing, every time a
preacher preaches, it ought togo through him.
I was discouraged this way.
I was like Lord, you're talkingto me, you're stepping on my
(33:27):
toes, and so Jesus has gonethrough this kind of stepping on
our toes from the little toeall the way now to the big toe.
And this is the bottom line.
He's telling us to choose theright treasure, then choose the
right vision and now to choosethe right loyalties Verse 24,.
(33:48):
No one can serve two masters,for either he will hate the one
and love the other, or he willbe devoted to the one and
despise the other.
And I think Jesus just knew theemotional bond that wealth and
money has on us.
And there's a spiritualconnection between our money
(34:13):
sometimes and what God haswanted to show us here, how we
think about money.
You know, I don't know aboutyou, but I've been involved in a
few settling of wills over theyears and I've been amazed at
(34:36):
what sometimes normal peacefulpeople will turn into sometimes
from Jekyll to Hyde, when moneybecomes the subject.
I got to get mine.
Maybe you've been a part of oneof those.
See, the question is do youpossess treasures or do the
(34:56):
treasures possess you?
And the danger for us is thatwe let the pursuit of what we
deem our treasure to reallysubstitute for our pursuit of
God.
You know what the Bible callsthat Idolatry, calls that
(35:25):
Idolatry Our treasure becomesour substitute for the thing we
should love the most.
He says you cannot serve God inmoney.
He doesn't say you should nottry.
He says you cannot serve God inmoney.
Why?
Because, ultimately, this is amatter of worship.
Why?
Because, ultimately, this is amatter of worship.
It's a matter of worship.
You have to choose.
Because why Jesus won't competewith lesser loyalties, lesser
(35:55):
gods, money?
I've figured this Money is agood servant but a poor master,
and so what he's telling us is,instead of letting it be your
master, make money your servant.
In fact, he says that in Luke 16.
He says go out and use yourmoney to buy friends for the
kingdom.
Don't let it be your master.
(36:17):
There's only one of me.
Don't let it be your master.
There's only one of me.
Well, I want to finish up bydrawing our attention to a
couple of short, really shortparables that he talks about
later in the Gospel of Matthew,and they kind of emphasize the
(36:37):
incomparable value of eternallife and the kingdom of God.
Listen to these.
Jesus said the kingdom ofheaven is like treasure hidden
in a field which a man found andcovered up.
Then, in his joy, he goes andsells all that he has and buys
that field Again, the kingdom ofheaven is like a merchant in
(36:59):
search of fine pearls who, onfinding one pearl of great price
, went and sold all that he hadand bought it.
And so the true riches thatChrist offers us, they're not
material, they're spiritual,they're not temporary, they're
(37:20):
eternal.
A number of years ago you know,it's kind of like, I think, of
the scripture, it's like fromthe mouth of infants, you have
ordained praise, the Bible says.
And years ago, when my youngestdaughter was, we were sitting
around, I remember, downstairson the couch and I think we were
(37:42):
just, we were talking aboutJesus.
And at the end of ourconversation and she's like
three years old she looked overat my wife and I and she said
Jesus is our greatest treasure.
And I looked at my wife and shelooked at me, me and I was like
that was a God thing, jesus isour greatest treasure.
(38:06):
And to those with spiritualeyes, jesus is our greatest
treasure.
The problem is with so many wenever buy into that truth.
But this is true wisdom thatJesus has given us here today.
Let me kind of tell you howJesus is our treasure and we'll
(38:28):
end here in just a moment.
Several places in Scripturewhere Jesus is talked about.
In this way, the unsearchableriches of Christ cannot be fully
searched out because, it says,in Christ all the fullness of
the deity dwells in bodily form.
(38:48):
So the riches of Christ includethink about it all that God is.
The unsearchable riches includethe wisdom of God, the glory of
God, the truth of God, the lifeof God and the love of God.
(39:10):
The Bible says in Christ Godhas blessed us in the heavenly
realms with every spiritualblessing.
The Bible says in Christ arehidden all the treasures of
wisdom and knowledge.
And the Bible says in ChristGod has given us everything we
need for a godly life.
(39:31):
That's a lot of treasure and wehaven't even scratched the
surface.
So how do you measure yourtreasure?
How do you know where yourtreasure is?
How do you measure it?
That's just a question of whatbrings you the most pleasure.
(39:54):
Let me read this again thekingdom of heaven is like
treasure hidden in a field whicha man found and covered up.
Then I hope you didn't missthis.
Then in his joy it says he goesand sells all that he has and
buys the field.
He is thrilled to transfer hisearthly wealth to pursue
(40:14):
something that is eternal.
John Piper wrote this makespleasure also the whistleblower
of your heart.
If something sinful gives youpleasure, it's not a pleasure
problem, it's a treasure problem.
Your pleasure mechanism islikely functioning just fine.
(40:37):
It's what you love.
That's out of whack andpleasure is outing you.
Pleasure is the meter in yourheart that measures how valuable
, how precious someone orsomething is to you.
Pleasure is the measure of yourtreasure, and Jesus ends his
(40:59):
part there on.
Where is your treasure?
I want to ask you this morning,let's just take a minute here,
because I feel like the HolySpirit has already pinpointed
something, or someone who hastaken the place of Jesus, has
taken the place of God, and I'mgoing to have Zach come up and
(41:20):
just play just for a minute.
This looks like oh, you'vechanged your appearance, zach.
Okay, so you're, I swapped.
So thank you, tyler.
If God has spoken to you, if theHoly Spirit has spoken to you
about where your heart lies,that you have placed value in
(41:43):
something else other than Jesusthis is for Christians then I
want you to come down and justwith your coming down, just give
that back to Jesus and just sayJesus, I take you for my
(42:04):
treasure.
It's really simple.
I mean, you're not doing thisfor me.
You're doing this as God hasspoken to you.
You looking for some othertreasure in your life, something
more valuable than Jesus.
So right now, as Tyler plays,would you make that transaction
(42:26):
with the Lord?
And then this is for those whodon't know Jesus If you've never
trusted Christ, you've neverseen him as someone who is worth
(42:48):
trading this life for eternity.
For it's real simple.
Jesus just says.
He says confess your sins, knowthat you have sinned and he has
died for your sins.
He died on the cross to takeaway your sins and he will give
(43:09):
you eternal life.
It's just a simple thing, asimple act of faith that you
come and you say Jesus, I wantyou instead of me in my life.
Would you just give your lifeto Jesus this morning?
We're going to take just aminute.
(43:29):
Anybody who wants to come,let's do business with the Lord
this morning.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
Thank you, jesus, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen,
amen, amen, Amen, amen, amen,amen, amen, amen, amen, amen,
amen, amen, amen, amen, amen,amen, amen, amen, amen, amen,
(44:21):
amen.
Kelly Kinder (44:21):
Amen, amen, amen.
At the end of our time today,there'll be people down here.
If you didn't make a decisionright now, didn't want to do
that right now, there'll bepeople here who would love to
share how you can know Jesus.
And if there's any otherprayers, there'll be a prayer
team down here today to pray foryou.
We always love to do thisbecause you know the Bible says
(44:45):
don't go to the Word, don't hearthe Word, like you're looking
at yourself in the mirror.
Sometimes we go to the mirrorand the Bible makes this analogy
we turn right around, we forgetwhat we look like and I believe
God has shown many of us heretoday what we look like.
So do business with him thisweek.
Father, we thank you for yourword this morning.
(45:08):
We ask you, lord, to applythese truths to our heart.
Lord, that we would find in youour greatest treasure.
We pray this in Jesus' name,amen.
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