Matthew 6:19–21
This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.
So there are some decisions that you make, and at the time, they seem like really good decisions. And then somewhere down the line, maybe, you know, a month, a day, 10 years, 20 years later, you look back, and you're like, man, that was really, really dumb. I have, so let me tell you a story, right? So I remember this very, very distinctly. I was sitting in the second row of my mom's Honda Odyssey, and I just bought my first Pokemon booster pack.
My very first booster pack, I open it up, and the first rare that I get is a holographic Charizard. I know. But, you know, this is me, like, in middle school, right? So I'm thinking, well, I'm not a collector. Like, I know Charizard's awesome. I know it's, like, the most powerful Pokemon in the world, But, like, I don't care because I want to build a different kind of deck because I'm going to play and I'm going to build this killer deck and I'm going to just win all these, like, battles I'm going to have with my friends. And so I traded the Charizard for, like, a Blastoise and three other Pokemon that I don't even remember.
And I look back on that and I'm like, man, that was dumb. Like, I shouldn't have done that. In our passage tonight, it talks about the same kinds of things, right? In our passage tonight, you see there are foolish decisions, and you see there are wise decisions. The difference is, what hangs in the balance isn't a Pokemon card. What hangs in the balance is your soul.
It's the soul of others around you. And so let's take a look at our passage together. Matthew 6, 19-21, you can find it on the front of your bulletin. It says, Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal.
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. I think the main idea of our passage tonight is pretty straightforward. It's invest your life in the kingdom of God. The main idea of our passage is invest your life in the kingdom of God. And I'm going to talk about it in two points. The first one is sparking eternal joy. And the second is immeasurable returns in the kingdom of God.
So our passage tonight, it sits right in the middle of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. And the thing I want us to zoom in on is how the Sermon on the Mount teaches us wisdom. It starts off with saying, blessed is the person who does this. Blessed are these kinds of people. And it's the exact same way that the psalmist starts out Psalm 1. Blessed is the man who walks in the way of the righteous, who avoids the way of the wicked. This person in Psalm 1 is someone who follows God, and this person is blessed.
This person is likened to a tree planted, firmly rooted, deeply rooted, that's fruitful, that's thriving. That's not just barely scraping by, but that's alive and vibrant. And at the end of the sermon, Jesus says, the person who listens to my words, to these words that I'm saying to you, the person who listens to these words is like the wise man who, in the midst of the storms of life, is stable and protected and so it's in this context that we come here now to jesus telling us don't invest your life in in temporal things don't don't invest your life in earthly treasure the picture that we have here is someone who's going out and is looking at different things and collecting them right don't don't store up for yourself treasures don't treasure up treasures that are gonna decay so you have this picture of a person who goes out and says oh yes this
this piece of cloth this looks valuable i think i'm gonna take it yes this this thing here i think it looks good i think i'm gonna buy it and the thing is they're spending their life they're spending their time they're spending their money gathering all these things you know there are all kinds of things that you can gather up in the course of a lifetime you can gather respect you can gather success and status you can gather a lot of money you can gather property you can get fancy watches or fast cars you can get a good career if you really work hard at it you can gather a whole lot of things in your life and friends tonight jesus is asking you to Marie Kondo your life. It's to say, okay, take all these things that you want to gather and put them under the strainer of my word and give it a good shake. And let's see what remains.
But the question isn't what sparks joy. The question is what is left? What can you take with you when you die? What things in your life have eternal value? And if you're here tonight, and if you're not a Christian, I need to tell you that it doesn't matter how much money you have. It doesn't matter how many good things you've done. It doesn't matter who your parents are. It doesn't matter even what you've done in the community or how people esteem you.
Either you will outlast those things or those things will outlast you. And you'll find yourself face to face with God. And the only thing that matters in that moment is how you answer the question that he asks, do I know you? Friend, you can come to know God today through Jesus Christ by acknowledging him as your Lord and your Savior.
You see, this passage is situated in the middle of a wisdom passage saying, listen, if you want to be happy and whole, if you want to be really happy and whole, you've got to know Jesus. You've got to know who he is. You've got to turn away from your sin. You've got to trust him to save you. And for those of us who are Christians, if we're honest with ourselves, our hearts are always wrestling with the temptation to worship something else.
John Calvin said it best, right? The heart is an idol factory. And if you're here tonight and you recognize that you've been chasing after the modern gods of success, of freedom, if you've been chasing after, you know, worshiping pleasure, self-preservation, let me give you some encouragement tonight. come to jesus i want you to see something right in verse 24 you see what he says what jesus says in verse 24 if you kind of look at your bible you look a little bit down verse 24 jesus says no one can serve two masters you can't serve both god and money and what i want you to see is when jesus says that he's not saying that as something that's just generally true even though it is. But he's saying this as someone who's been through the crucible of temptation. He's saying that as someone who's come out of that temptation on the other side victorious. Two chapters before
this, Jesus is in the desert. He's in the wilderness. And Satan brings him up to the highest mountain, shows him the glories of the earth, of all the nations. He says, look, This can be yours if you just worship me. And Jesus says, turns around to him and says, you shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve. So Jesus knows what it's like to be hungry and to be tired and to fight temptation. He doesn't despise your weakness.
He doesn't scorn your frailty. He invites you to come to him and to let his greater righteousness be your righteousness. He invites you to come to him and let his joy in shepherding you and caring for you to be the source of your joy. There's no way to find eternal and lasting happiness apart from worshiping Jesus. And so go to him. And when you do, you'll find that his heart and his priorities become your heart and your priorities.
And your heart starts to march to his heartbeat. And you can't help but treasure the things that he treasures. You can't help but treasure his kingdom and his people. So point two, the immeasurable returns in the kingdom of God. So we have this image here of someone who's going out and who's gathering who's evaluating looking at things and saying these things are valuable i'm going to collect these things i'm going to store up these kinds of things and what i think jesus is saying here is that this laying up of treasures means to invest in the kingdom of god if you look in verse 20 he says lay up for your child for yourselves treasures in heaven if you look at verse 24 he says you can't serve both god and money if you just scan down a little bit further you look at verse 33 and he says seek first the kingdom of god you put all these three things
together and i think that's what jesus is saying he's saying do the do the things value the things that matter in the kingdom of god value the things that last so how do you invest how do you invest in the kingdom of god One of the most natural and one of the best ways to do that is to be deeply invested in the ministry of a local church. It means to be all in. It means to be open-handed and generous with your money and with your time.
It means to look at other people who you don't know and to love them like they were your closest friends and family. It means serving other members by meeting up with them for discipleship. It means bringing meals to people that you maybe, you don't know, but you know they're going through a hard time. It also means signing up for nursery to serve our church. And I want to just take a little bit of a closer look real quick at two things.
Money and time. So how are you tempted to think about your giving? Are you tempted to think about your giving as like sort of like a black hole of duty? It's just something you've got to do? Are you tempted to think about your giving as like a tax of some kind? Like a spiritual tax or like a Christian tax? Is your giving, are you tempted to use it and think of it as a power play to get what you want?
from God or from the church or from other people. The thing is, our attitudes about giving are actually independent from how much money we have or give. It doesn't matter if you're a student making minimum wage or if you're an executive making hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars a year. It doesn't matter. Because the reason why it doesn't matter is what Jesus says in verse 21. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Because your view on giving, how you think about giving, it's not ultimately an issue of dollars and cents. It's ultimately an issue of worship. It's ultimately an issue of the heart. And until you worship God rightly, you won't be able to value anything else properly.
And if we want to think rightly about our giving, we have to think rightly about who our God is. Our God isn't a stingy God. He doesn't save the very best for himself. He doesn't withhold the good things from us. And we know this because he gave his very own son, who was God but took on the form of a man and died and rose again so that we would also be raised with him, glorified one day. The next thing I want to double-click on is time.
In the same way that you create a budget for your money, create a budget for your time. Leave some margin in your schedule. Don't overpack it so much so that you can't make time to meet with other people. If you have kids, make the time to talk with them about who God is. Show them how you worship Monday through Saturday. If you're a child of unbelieving parents, take the time to talk with them more regularly.
And yes, definitely about spiritual things, but also just to talk with them and to care for them. The best things in life aren't free. The best things in life are immeasurable and eternal. You can't put a price tag on discipleship and helping others become more like Jesus Christ. There's no dollar value that you can assign to seeing dead hearts come to life through preaching and evangelism.
And at the end of it all, there's definitely no way that you're going to look back on your life and look back at the ways that you've poured into the kingdom of God through your time and through your money and through your energy and through your life and regret it. That's not going to happen because you'll be side by side with the people you poured into worshiping our God together. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for who you are and how good your word is.
We thank you that you not only are good, but you show us what the good life looks like. And Father, we pray that as we come to you, as we turn away from our sin, Father, would you remind us of your goodness? Would you remind us of the ways that you love us? And pray that we would see how much you've given us, what goodness you've done for us, and that we would in turn pour our hearts out to pursue your kingdom and to love your people.
We thank you, Lord, for loving us so much. We pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen.