Perfect Treasure-Matthew 6:19-24

Recent themes from the Sermon on the Mount were anger, lust, marriage and worry. Today it’s money, our earthly treasure: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth… But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven… For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:19-21).

Poverty. More than one billion people in the world live on < $1/day. About 3 billion live on < $3/day. Between 12-20% of Americans live below the poverty line. Compared to them what do I have that I may not even think about?

How I’m privileged. I live in a house with space for four kids who have all moved out. Next door I have a building where my medical business office is. In both buildings we have tenants. In both buildings I have a PC for me to do video consults with patients and to prepare for my sermons, and a lap top for travel. I have too many books that I will never finish reading. I have about a dozen Bibles. I have ample supply of coffee (and a latte machine)–drinking up to 6 cups a day. I can eat out whenever I want. I can travel to any part of the world if I want to. I can buy whatever I want…except an airplane and a sport’s team! I have Netflix and Amazon Prime and I go to movie theaters whenever I want. I have heat for the winter and AC for the summer. I never worry about what to wear. I live in a safe neighborhood. I have funds saved for retirement and hope to also leave an inheritance for my 4 kids and 6 grandkids (and counting), while > 40% of Americans have <$6,000 in savings. (The average American household savings account balance is $16,420.) How does Jesus fare compared to me?

The Jesus I follow had nothing. What food he ate he received by fishing, farming, or by donations. He lived in a dry, hot world with houses that do not cool enough to make life comfortable. To cool off people waded into the Sea of Galilee. He lived on little. He lived on the generosity of others. He knew hunger and thirst. He knew what it was to have little and to dwell with those who had even less, while others around him basked in luxury and filled their mouths with delicacies. Jesus demanded simplicity because he lived it, and he expected care for the poor because he experienced it. Jesus’ message can be reduced to these ideas: Live simply. Possessions are mysteriously idolatrous. Trust God.

The big question from the Sermon on the Mount is “Where is your heart“–the control center of your life?  When Jesus warns his followers about attachment to or accumulation of possessions, he stands in a long line of prophetic announcements about idolatry, the danger of accumulation, justice, and the need to distribute one’s excess in order to care for those who had little. This is not simply about an ideal society or economic theory, but about worship and idolatry: what’s in your heart? For your life is always a reflection of your heart. Therefore, we must guard our hearts and watch over them so that our heart follows hard after the things of God and is not distracted by the things of this world. (Prov 4:23; 1 Jn 2:15-17). 3 questions:

1. Treasures – possessions (Mt 6:19-21): “Where is your treasure?” answers the question “Where is your heart?” because where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
2. Focus – the single eye (Mt 6:22-23): “Where is your focus?” What are our eyes focused on? Are they focused on the seen or the unseen?
3. Master (Mt 6:24): “Who, or what, are you serving?”

I. Treasures (6:19-21)

Jesus is addressing priorities, and the central priority is God himself. But the temptation to lay up treasures on earth (replacing God as the central priority) is a real temptation that we all face from youth to adulthood.

1. A prohibition (Mt 6:19). The follower of Jesus–the one committed to Jesus and his kingdom (Mt 6:33) and who lets this priority frame all of life–is prohibited from storing up treasures. This surely involves possessions. More than that it refers to things as a focus of joy, or the spirit of acquisitiveness or the desire to acquire. Jesus’ point is that these things are temporary. They also do not satisfy (Eccl 5:10).
2. A positive command (Mt 6:20). In contrast, the disciple is commanded to store up treasures that last. Here “treasures” moves from things we value which are temporal to things we value that are moral and eternal. What lasts forever? Love (1 Cor 13). We begin to focus on the eternal if we live to love God and others. Jesus commonly urges his followers to live in the light of life after death, or the age to come. Treasures may not just be money, for the religious leaders also loved prestige (Mk 12:38) and power (Mt 23:2). Good examples: Martin Luther King Jr, after winning the Nobel Peace Prize, donated his considerable financial award to the cause of human freedom. Rick Warren, after the success of The Purpose Driven Life, reverses tithe.
3. The reason (Mt 6:21). What we value–our treasures–are measured by where and on what we spend our energies. This indicates our heart, or the center of our passion. Joseph of Arimathea, though rich and a disciple (Mt 27:57), had a treasure centered on Jesus, cf the rich young ruler whose treasure was centered on possessions and not caring for the poor (19:16-30). Also Zacchaeus (Lk 19:1-10).

II. Focus (Mt 6:22-23 deal with the deceitfulness of a man’s heart): The single eye means that God is all there is and takes up all space.

Mt 6:22 is a tricky little saying. What does Jesus mean that the eye is the lamp of the body?

1. We must keep our eyes fixed on God.
2. We should take care of what we look at. Where do your eyes naturally get drawn to? Are you in control of them, or do they take you–and your mind and heart–wherever they want?
3. The eyes are like the headlights of a car. Driving on a dark road one turns on the lights. But if nothing happens, you realize just how dark it is. Jesus is saying that if your eyes are not on God, they will instead follow whatever eye-catching, pretty thing that comes along. Are your eyes leading you in the right direction, and showing you the road ahead?

Is your eye clear and receiving spiritual truths and blessings or is it bad and God’s truths are blurry and unclear? Jesus wants to probe into the condition of one’s heart, to probe whether it is light or darkness. Are we in the light or in the darkness.

Is your heart filled with light or darkness? The heart is the eye to the soul. It is through the heart that God’s blessing comes. Out of the heart the condition of the soul is revealed. If the heart is in tune with God then spiritual truths will be seen and spiritual blessings will be received. But if the heart is dark, then nothing spiritual can be perceived or received. If the heart claims to have light and see spiritual things but in fact the heart is far from God, then the darkness is even greater. What is bad is called good and good called bad.

Self-deception. Too often people deceive themselves into thinking that they are doing some great work for God by some little token thing they do. They feel they are doing great things for God by the little bit of money they give, or by the little bit of time they devote to God. The fact is that their goal is not the kingdom of God but their own kingdom. Their concern is not God, but their own fame, fortune, honor, prestige and power.

“Do you see spiritual things clearly? Or is your vision of God and his will for your life clouded by spiritual cataracts or near-sightedness brought on by an unhealthy preoccupation with things? I am convinced that this is true for many Christians, particularly those living in the midst of Western affluence.” James Boice.

Gathering up riches here on the earth blurs our vision. It causes us not to see the truth, the will of God, correctly. It distorts our vision, causing us to not see God as clearly as we should. When riches are the focus of our lives, our vision becomes distorted. When the things we can see outweigh the eternal things that are unseen, we have spiritual near-sightedness. The eye is the pathway through which light enters the body. It illuminates what is going on around us. It allows colors, scenery, and faces to come to light when we look at them. William Barclay explains: “The idea behind this passage is one of childlike simplicity. The eye is regarded as the window by which the light gets into the whole body. The color and state of a window decide what light gets into a room. If the window is clear, clean, and undistorted, the light will come flooding into the room, and will illuminate every corner of it. If the glass of the window is colored or frosted, distorted, dirty, or obscure, the light will be hindered, and the room will not be lit up… So then, says Jesus, the light which gets into any man’s heart and soul and being depends on the spiritual state of the eye through which it has to pass, for the eye is the window of the whole body.”

The eye that is full of light is a life lived by faith in the eternal promises of God. We may not be able to see the physical manifestation of those eternal things, but we believe by faith in the truth that one day we will be with Christ – the end of our faith, the salvation of our souls (1 Pet 1:6-9). When our focus is on earthly, temporal things, our sight is all blurred and messed up. When our treasure is on earth; it is a distraction from what is really going on. We cannot see straight (cf Heb 11:17-18).

What happens in the dark? You stumble around the room trying to find some source of light so that you can find your way and see things so you don’t trip and fall or stub your toe. When our eyes are focused on the things of this world, our eyes are bad, our bodies are full of darkness, and we have a very difficult time seeing the truth. If the eyes of our heart and mind are focused on the Father, then we will be in right standing with Him and see Him clearly to know what He is asking of us at that point in time.

III. Master (6:24)

Master means slave owner. A slave can not serve two masters because slave’s total allegiance belongs to his owner. This is the climax and pivotal point of this passage: Who are you serving? Almighty God or the Almighty Dollar? Know that “money talks.” It bosses you around. Only if you have your priorities right will you have one boss–God himself.

People often think they can have the best of both worlds – both here on earth serving themselves with riches and living it up, and later down the road in the future, which would be heaven. But Jesus states otherwise (Mt 6:24). Jesus tells us that we cannot serve two masters. We cannot serve money and God; we cannot serve popularity and God; we cannot serve ourselves and God; we cannot serve our families and God. We can have only one master. Jesus is challenging us to repent, to change our minds about earthly treasures, about the things that we formerly served, and to serve Him only. One or the other will lose out, and in most cases, it will be God.

God is calling us to a radical life of service to Him as our Master (Lk 14:26). There is such huge importance in realizing that God is our Father, and we are His children. God will take care of us and provide for all of our needs as He sees fit. But the temptation to hold onto earthly things weighs heavy on us and tempts us to trust our riches instead of our heavenly Father.

How do you store up treasures in heaven? How do you serve only God as your one master?

• Use your time, energy and finances to pursue after those things that are of eternal value.
• Examine your financial receipts and calendar. What do you spend your money on? Where do you spend your time? Examine your checkbook, credit card statements and bills along with your schedule of activities, and you will easily be able to tell you what your heart values. The location of your treasure reveals your heart. Where are you laying up for yourselves treasure? Is it on earth where it will be destroyed by decay or be stolen? Or is your treasure in heaven where it will pay eternal dividends? Where is your treasure? Where is your heart?  How would you feel if Jesus were examining it with you? Don’t you know that He does know what you do with your finances?