Where is Your Heart?

The rest in the middle teaches us why we should not lay up treasures here and how to not worry about tomorrow because we have not let the world become our treasure.

When we allow things here like buildings, traditions, the way things were always done, money, personal preferences, family, jobs, cars, or anything else like that become our focus, we have made that a treasure and pushed God aside.

When this happens we begin to look at those things as our savior and become enraged when they are shifted or shook.

We lose sleep because someone changed something or maybe we are not happy because we believe our money is at risk or clothing or work or anything.

These all become gods to us and we fall into that trap and allow foolish thoughts to make us worry and stress.

We have shifted our eyes away from the Lord and let our heart follow and when this happens nothing good will come.

Our eyes will guide our hearts, we will then follow one of two masters, if we follow the wrong master we will devalue the correct master, and if our hearts are wrong, we will not have peace.

If we look at things here to give us hope or peace or even if something good like memories in a place begin to rule us, we have turned that into a master and we cannot serve two masters, as Jesus will soon tell us.

In Matt. 6:19-34 we read,

Matthew 6:19–34 ESV

19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. 22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, 23 but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! 24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. 25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. 34 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

We see one predominant theme through these 16 verses of Scripture: look to God and seek Him above all things and worry will disappear.

Many may struggle with the truth of this but I promise when you lay it all out to God and let Him take the worries and you follow Him fully as possible, worries seem to vanish like a wisp of vapor from a steamer.

It does because as we see in the first observation...

Where the Eye Looks the Heart Goes

As we see in verses 19-23 what we look to is where our hearts will go.

Our hearts will look to money and possessions or even comforts like tradition and the way things have always been and make that our treasure.

When we do this our eye which is our lamp of our body will become darkened and that darkness is very great.

It is very great because we have allowed things not of God to become our ruler and we may have become very tainted and begun to live a lie before God and man.

We may begin to drift and look at things we should not. Which will lead to us following things we should not.

If we do this, When we do this we must ask some solid questions.

Questions like, Am I content with what God has given me?

Am I letting things here lead me or is God?

Am I looking to the past as the way everything should be, or to God who is leading?

Am I focused on more and more?

Where does my eye immediately go daily?

Do I look at my work, money, possessions, family, or anything else rather than God?

These questions are not exhaustive but I think they encompass the majority of our lives.

When we look at other things over God our hearts will follow to where our eyes look.

This is why Jesus said earlier that the one who looks at a person with lustful intent has already committed adultery.

Our hearts follow our eyes and become dark like our eyes because we have shifted our eyes from the true Light of God to a dark world.

Our once bright disposition becomes dark and wicked.

Our once bright and cheery life becomes dark and grouchy.

We become that jerk that no one wants to be around because all we do is complain about how someone is trying to take things from us like money, possessions, what once was, and many other things.

We resist change and hold tightfisted to our money when we become darkened inside when we once were light.

This happens because as our next observation tells us...

Our Hearts Belong to One of Two Masters

Verse 24 tells us we cannot serve two masters.

When we do we will hate one and love the other or we will devote to one and reject the other.

Either way we can only belong to one master and if that master is any of the earthly things I have already mentioned, then we are despising our great God and Savior.

Chuck Swindoll stated about this, “there is no room for competing loyalties. Our possessions and pursuits must be submitted to Christ’s plans and priorities, not the other way around.” (Insights on Matthew, 120).

This means we must be open to whatever God says and wants and not allow our wants and desires to control us.

When we allow our wants and desires to control us, we will not follow what God desires.

We will become like the world and become bitter and clingy to things we must never cling to.

We will become hard to deal with and become angry at people for doing things that are not wrong but just against what we think is right.

We get greedy and stop giving money to the church because the church only wants my money. We miss that the church operates because of the money it receives and when the church can operate correctly it can do more ministry and reach more people.

But if we are following the master of this world and his drug of choice for many, MONEY, we will not serve God as we should.

As one author wrote in a book called “Die Broke,” I believe, he said when we die our last check should be for our coffin and it should bounce because we have given all for the Lord.

What a way to think about service to the Lord.

That is one who is so focused on the Lord and His kingdom they are not concerned about what happens here because they know they will be with Him forever.

They also know that the Lord is a generous and prospering God in spiritual matters which is more important than money or having things just how I want them.

I promise I would rather have great knowledge of the Lord and be solid in my spiritual life than have millions of dollars or have things exactly as I want them.

I say this because as our next observation shows us...

The Heart With the Wrong Master Devalues the Lord

Another do not is seen in verse 25. It says do not be anxious about your life.

We next see after this a series of questions that support the goodness of God to us and His creation.

These questions are in verses 25-28 and 31.

Jesus asks the people then and us now,

(v. 25) “Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?” About how we should not worry about food and clothing.

(V. 26) “Are you not of more value than they?” About how God provides for the birds of the air.

(V. 27) “Which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?”

(v. 28) “And why are you anxious about clothing?” And then He goes onto speak of the flowers of the field that are here today and gone tomorrow having more beauty than the splendor of Solomon. And How he makes them beautiful every day. Why do we who are of more value, made in His image, worry about that stuff?

He will provide so much more than we can ever think of.

We do not need to cling to things and let our lives become miserable because we fear change or losing what we have because you cannot lose the one who gives you what you need.

God is powerful above any and all situations you are in and He is powerful enough to lift you out of that or carry you through.

So don’t worry about what you will eat, drink, or wear, because God is for you and with you.

We place these things here above Him and when we do this we drop the Lord and lift ourselves or the thing we pursue above Him.

Now this does not mean we do not work or do things. No, it is saying

“Worry presents us with the dual temptation to distrust God and to substitute fear for practical action. Worry means paying attention to what we cannot change instead of putting our energies to work in effective ways. Jesus made it clear that worry takes away from life rather than adding anything to it. We can counteract worry by doing what we can and trusting where we can’t. When we work for God and wait on his timing, we won’t have time to worry. When we seek first to honor God as king and conform our lives to his righteousness, worry will always finds us otherwise occupied.” (Barton, Matthew, Life Application Bible Commentary, 123).

So stop devaluing God and valuing the world above Him.

Like the man who hears of a new job states away and hears that it pays three times what he makes now, He does not see the good home he has, the life his family has, the church they are in, the people who are for them, and how God has blessed him and his, he only sees dollar signs.

He then moves his family away and in a few months the marriage is on the rocks, where it was not before, the kids have become bitter and angry, when they were happy before, they do not attend church because he is always working, where they were before.

He placed a value of the world above the value of God and now everything is falling apart. The only fix for this is to value God and not the world and let God provide and trust Him.

Because when we do this as the final observation says...

The Heart Given to God Has Peace

We see that Jesus said that desiring the things of the world is what the Gentiles do.

This was a smack to the Jewish listeners.

This was offensive because they were compared to the unbelievers and dogs.

But when we begin to act like the world we are the world and we want the same things.

That is why Jesus said that we must seek God’s purposes first and His righteousness and we will receive great blessings.

We may struggle through life in many ways but when we trust the Lord, we can have strength and honor Him even in times of suffering.

As Paul wrote to the generous Philippian believers who sent him a tremendous gift from their not so rich funds, “God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:19).

We should not allow ourselves to worry about tomorrow because tomorrow has not arrived and we do not know what our Great God will do for us then.

We are living in the present and the present has enough troubles for us.

We must face the here and now and let tomorrow come with a clear list.

If we are so worried about tomorrow when we are working on today we will carry today’s problems to tomorrow and make tomorrow even more unbearable.

We must rest in the Lord and trust Him to provide for us tomorrow just as He did today and let Him go before us in all things.

This means we never face a day or situation without prayer.

When we pray we are saying to God this is yours and I trust you.

But we must leave it at that.

If we pray but still focus on the worry, we are allowing tomorrows troubles to fill us when we are still facing today’s worries.

We often think,

“the best way to avoid dealing with today’s challenges and difficulties is to get wrapped up in tomorrow’s. It seems easier to worry about what might not happen in the future than to deal with what is happening in the present!”

But, “Tomorrow may require plans and forethought, but not worry. Today requires work and trust. Worry immobilizes us today and reveals a lack of trust in God’s ability to hold tomorrow and preserve us. Jesus left no doubt that troubles of one kind or another will be part of the daily routine. But he also described those troubles as “enough” for each day. Can we not also trust God to provide whatever we need for the day? When we worry about tomorrow, we misuse the strength God has provided for today. We need to take “one day at a time” in our relationship with God. (Barton, 128).

It truly is a life of one step at a time and one day at a time.

God knows the future and He is with us.

Let us trust Him and when we do we will have peace.

Conclusion

Life is a storm and a battlefield. If we live with constant worry we will fail to live right.

Even though life is a storm and a battlefield, it has much beauty and good to see and do in it.

Worry will rob us of that.

In this story in a second we see the peace we can have.

Long ago a man sought the perfect picture of peace. Not finding one that satisfied, he announced a contest to produce this masterpiece. The challenge stirred the imagination of artists everywhere, and paintings arrived from far and wide. Finally the great day of revelation arrived. The judges uncovered one peaceful scene after another, while the viewers clapped and cheered.

The tensions grew. Only two pictures remained veiled.

As a judge pulled the cover from one, a hush fell over the crowd.

A mirror-smooth lake reflected lacy, green birches under the soft blush of the evening sky. Along the grassy shore, a flock of sheep grazed undisturbed. Surely this was the winner.

The man with the vision uncovered the second painting himself, and the crowd gasped in surprise. Could this be peace?

A tumultuous waterfall cascaded down a rocky precipice; the crowd could almost feel its cold, penetrating spray. Stormy-gray clouds threatened to explode with lightning, wind and rain. In the midst of the thundering noises and bitter chill, a spindly tree clung to the rocks at the edge of the falls. One of its branches reached out in front of the torrential waters as if foolishly seeking to experience its full power.

A little bird had built a nest in the elbow of that branch. Content and undisturbed in her stormy surroundings, she rested on her eggs. With her eyes closed and her wings ready to cover her little ones, she manifested peace that transcends all earthly turmoil.

What a great picture of one with their eyes on the right thing.

This bird had peace because she was not looking at all the things around her but what mattered.

That is why where your eyes go your heart follows needs to be remembered.

Also why we need to remember that our heart can only belong to one master and that master better not be self if we want peace and no worries.

Then having the right master stops you from devaluing the one that counts.

And when we do this we will have true peace in the face of uncertainty because we have the God of all things with us guiding us.

Rest in Him and in the storms of life you too can have peace like this bird on the edge of the waterfalls did.

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