Matthew 6:19–24

Man, what a fun Sunday! Church I hope you’re as encouraged as I am by what you’ve seen this morning. Mothers, I hope you’re hearts have been blessed by today.

If you’re a guest with us I want to say welcome! I know we’ve got a bunch of family here today to celebrate and what a celebration it’s been. If you haven’t been to Liberty before then we have a practice of picking a book or section of the Scriptures and walking through them verse by verse. Since January we have been swimming in Matthew 5-7, otherwise famously known as Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. We’re going to be in Matthew 6:19-24 and see what Jesus has to say about materialism & greed. Now you may go, that doesn’t seem to fit Mother’s Day, but I promise you, Jesus’ instruction in this passage will apply to all of us. Honestly, this passage is a tough one. I listened to Tim Keller’s sermon on this passage and he said most of us tend to look at greed as something that we don’t really struggle with, but I think that as we walk through this text today we’re going to see that it doesn’t matter whether you’re 4 years old or 90 years old, the sneaky sin of greed is somewhere in our heart. So let’s read Matthew 6:19-24 and then pray.

Matthew 6:19–24 ESV

“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. “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! “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.

This is the Word of the Lord. Let’s pray.

OPENING ILLUSTRATION.

Main Point: Kingdom People single mindedly serve God.

As Jesus teaches this, he naturally breaks it down into 3 different, but extremely related parts. The first thing we see in order to help us understand how to single mindedly serve God is:

Kingdom People value heavenly treasure more than temporary treasure.

We’ve just come out of a month in which we looked at giving, prayer, and fasting. In the previous passages, Jesus addressed the “spiritual” things of life. I really hate that designation because I think most people hold it and think that our life is divided between the “spiritual” and the “secular”. But really all of life is lived in front of God, so all of life is spiritual. I want to be real clear on that, but it is helpful to think in categories, so for lack of better terms we’ll use those.

Jesus now turns his attention to the more obviously tangible things of life—the secular if you will—and he starts by saying, “Do not lay up.” The verb there is a present, active imperative. It’s better translated as “Stop laying up treasures on earth.” Jesus either knew that this brand new group of disciples were focused on earthly treasures or he knew man’s heart well enough to know that it was bound up in him.

Stop to think about your own life for a minute. What do you spend the majority of your life doing? Work. Students, I know you’re looking at this week of school and thinking there’s no point. Just let it be over and go to work. Jett, maybe you’re thinking school is pointless just let me get a job. But don’t rush it. You’re going to spend 2/3 of your life in the workforce. Which is great! God made you to work & keep! But when it comes to working what really is our biggest concern? Do I get paid enough? (And all teachers & mother’s in the room said no.) Overwhelmingly, when it comes to work, even if we love our job, money drives our decision. If you were offered the same job for more money would you take it? You’d at least seriously consider it.

The point isn’t that money is bad, we’ll get there in a second. The point is we tend to center our lives around the dollar. We tend to focus our hearts on storing up treasures and Jesus is saying here to stop that. Stop storing up treasures on earth.

That brings about the question, what treasures is Jesus talking about? Technically speaking the word for treasure means anything you put your confidence in. This passage clearly alludes to money, but not just money, he also points towards things of value like clothing, crops, and cattle. We know moths eat through clothes, but they are also destructive on crops. The word rust can be translated in several different ways, one being the degradation of something like silver or copper, but it can also be translated as a type of bug that would destroy crops or animals. So Jesus is talking about more than money, he’s talking about people’s livelihoods. The things that they count on for security. The things they have confidence in.

It made me pause to wonder what are somethings we tend to put our confidence in? Just like the disciples we tend to find confidence or a lack there of based off what’s in our bank accounts. We’re either terrified that we don’t have enough or we rest content because there is enough. But besides money what else do we put our confidence in? Maybe a way to put it is to say, “I can’t imagine life with ________.” What goes in that blank? Or if we were to turn it into a question we’d ask what are you afraid of losing?

Is it approval? Your confidence is in other people’s approval of you or your approval of yourself. You can’t imagine life without it.

What about your family? Obviously a good gift from God, but can our confidence and our ability to move forward in life come from the security of our family?

What about other people in general? I can’t imagine life without him or her. When a person becomes where you derive your confidence from you’ve made them into your treasure.

What about your image? Whether that is how you physically look or how perceive you, perception is reality, right? So do you find confidence in my perspective of you or someone else’s perspective of you? Do you strive for what you strive for so other people will see you in a certain way? Does your confidence rest in how other people see you?

Look that list isn’t exhaustive, it’s just an example. The question is what are you living for? What are you chasing after? What are you placing your confidence in?

If those things don’t trigger anything for you, Keller in his sermon on this passage says to follow the money. What do you throw your money at without a thought about it? Keller uses a similar illustration in his sermon, but you’ve probably heard me mention that I love to fly fish. I think it’s a blast for a lot of reasons. But one of the things that’s necessary for fly fishing is flies. Every time I go fly fishing I go buy a license, not really caring what it costs, and then I go buy flies. Now, when I buy flies I never, ever check how much they cost. I just get what I want or what the guy says is working and I get 4-5 of em. No second thought.

Now, I took my kids fishing the past couple years, you’ve heard stories about that, but when we walk in to get our license and I’m ready to go fishing for high mountain lake trout, my kids find this super awesome, bright colorful bobber that’d be great for salmon or bass or anything but trout in streams or small lakes. Dad, can we get this?! Immediately the answer is no kids that won’t work for what we’re doing. But dad it’s awesome and I think it will. Buddy, it’s too expensive let’s just put it back.

You see all the sudden I become money conscience, I become treasure conscience, when it goes against what I want or think. I protect that $ because I’m really more worried about catching that fish, which I have no control over, versus the memory that my kid would have casting out this ridiculously overside tackle that wouldn’t work. In the moment, I have treasured the wrong thing.

Here’s the problem with treasuring earthly things. In verse 21 Jesus says, “where your treasure is, there you heart will be also.” I think there’s 3 problems that come with treasuring earthly things. First, they’re temporary. Jesus talks about moth & rust & thieves. His point is the things that we treasure will be destroyed, fall apart, or taken away. Look, everything we talked about, everything, your possessions, approval from others, family, ability to provide, people, others perception of you, your physical well-being, all of it will be taken away, it will be destroyed, it will fall apart at some point in your life, and what happens to your heart when it does? You are absolutely, unequivocally crushed. It’s why you say, I can’t imagine living without ____. When you find your confidence in temporary things your heart will temporarily be satisfied, but eternally destroyed.

Second, it’s idol worship. When we store up treasures on earth we show that we worship something other than God. Look if these are the things you find your confidence in, then what do you build your life around? You build your life around the security you find in temporary things. And what you value you worship. When our life is oriented around earthly treasures we’re worshipping false idols.

Third, and maybe the scariest, Jesus talks about our heart here. We talked about the heart a few weeks ago in Matthew 5:28. The context was lust, but look a little closer at the implication of the heart here:

Matthew 5:28 ESV

But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Church, when we find our confidence in, when we build up treasures for ourselves, when our heart is wrapped up in the worship of earthly things we’ve committed spiritual adultery. Stop storing up treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. It won’t last. It’s idolatry, and it’s spiritual adultery.

Now I want to make a quick note here just to be very clear, Jesus isn’t saying that having a lot of material possessions or wealth or anything that we’ve discussed is inherently sinful. That’s not the point. The point is finding our confidence in them. Our security in them. Our identity in them. Having a lot of stuff isn’t sinful, setting our hope on it is.

So what then do we do? Once you’ve recognized that placing your confidence in earthly treasures, storing up for yourself treasures on earth, you instead look to store up treasures in heaven. But how do we do that? For all you type A people in the room I will give some practical action steps, but first we need to know the treasure of heaven.

Think about Jesus for a minute. He existed in the glory of heaven with all the treasures that exists there, but do you know what Jesus didn’t have? Jesus left heaven in pursuit of something else. He valued you enough to lay aside his glory, to take on our form, to suffer a murderous execution and then rise again because he valued you. What a glorious mystery the gospel is. Have you recognized that you have treasured the wrong things? Have you looked to the one who treasures you? When you see Jesus for who he is and what he’s done, there is nothing more valuable, there is nothing of greater concern, there is nothing else that you want to put your confidence in than him. You can’t store up treasures in heaven until you know the treasure of heaven.

The reason that is is because otherwise the things of this earth, both religious and secular, become safety nets. Right? If we say hey let’s store up treasures in heaven by good works or generosity or religion then our confidence isn’t in Jesus, it’s in us! In that scenario, money isn’t a way we display generosity, it’s what we’re relying in to purchase our standing before God.

But when Jesus is our treasure, money is just money. Approval just becomes approval. Perception, perception; status, status. Those things are just things. We aren’t owned by them. We aren’t slaves to them. We’re free to store up treasures! But how?

I really enjoy pirate movies/shows. I look forward to the day when I can watch Pirates of the Caribbean with our kids. Something about the adventure, the fight scenes, the freedom of being on the water and making your own way is all appealing to me. But in almost every Pirate movie, I guess you could say every pirate movie, what are they after? They’re after the treasure! They’re in pursuit of the reward that awaits them after the hard fought journey.

I find it interesting that in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus has mentioned the word “reward” 5 times already. Do you think that maybe the way we store up treasure, we receive our reward, is tied to what Jesus has already talked about? Let’s look real quickly at the 5 times Jesus says we’ll receive our reward and in it I think we’ll find 5 ways we store up our treasure. Do you want to start easy or hard? Let’s just have a quick church vote, who’s up for easy? Who’s up for hard? Let’s start easy. Matthew 6:17-18

Matthew 6:17–18 (ESV)

But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

Jesus says that when we fast our Father will reward us. Last week I preached on this and offered to open the church up Tuesday at noon for us to fast and pray together. I’m not going to lie, I genuinely thought we’d have like 5 people top end there. About 11:52 and no one was here I had decided I’d go eat lunch. We ended up having 18 people show up! I’m so encouraged by that. Thank you to those that came. I’d love to ask those 18 if it was worth it, and I promise you everyone of them would say it was. Our reward may have been experienced right then, but most scholars argue that the rewards Jesus promises when we walk biblically will be found in heaven. Fasting is the first way you can store up treasures in heaven.

Matthew 6:6 (ESV)

But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

When we pray our Father promises to reward us.

Matthew 6:3–4 (ESV)

But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

When we’re generous, when we give, when we meet people’s needs, our Father promises to reward us. Ok that’s the easy ones; how about the hard ones?

Matthew 5:46 Jesus has instructed us to love your enemies as you might see above verse 43.

Matthew 5:46 (ESV)

For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?

Jesus says here that if you love those who love you then you won’t have a reward, but when you love like Jesus, like the treasure of heaven, and you love those who are your enemies you will find a reward.

Lastly, Matthew 5:11-12

Matthew 5:11–12 (ESV)

“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Fasting, prayer, giving, loving our enemies, and suffering persecution for Jesus’ name are all ways in which Jesus has so far promised a reward. This list isn’t exhaustive of the Scriptures; it’s just where we are in the Sermon on the Mount. Truthfully, are any of those easy? No. None of them are. Half of us were hungry Tuesday at lunch and the other half were hangry Tuesday at dinner…or maybe that was just me.

Here’s the thing, when Jesus satisfies your heart, because we know when we hunger and thirst for him he promises to satisfy us. He told us that back in the Beatitudes. When Jesus satisfies your heart, when he has your heart, when you are confident in his approval of and treasuring of you, when you treasure him, then you want to be with him, you want to be like him, so you fast & pray & give & love your enemies & suffer persecution with joy because that’s what he did in pursuit of you. You do these things and more because you value heavenly treasure more than earthly treasure. Church, what do you value? What are you putting your confidence in? What do you treasure?

Our second point from this passage this morning is this:

Kingdom People have single, not double, vision.

On one hand these two verses are pretty complicated to understand. There’s a lot of historical discussion on the complication of what Jesus is communicating, but I won’t go into all of that. Let’s look back at Matthew 6:22-23

Matthew 6:22–23 ESV

“The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

At first glance Jesus seem to deviate from what he was talking about, but really these verses tie the previous verse in with the next one. Jesus here is comparing and contrasting healthy vs bad eyes. Here I stand with glasses, so I know what good versus bad vision is. When I take these off you guys just become a blur. When I leave them on I can see clearly. I have an astigmatism, so if my prescription isn’t up to date then at night when I drive lights have stars around them. Anybody else have that problem? I’m thankful for modern technology that has the ability to correct these things. But is Jesus talking here about how we literally see?

What makes these verses difficult to understand is that there’s really two different interpretations from it that center on the word healthy. Healthy is better interpreted as singular. I think only the KJV interprets it that way, but when it does it reads funny. So what is Jesus getting at here?

The disciple with healthy vision has his eyes singularly set on God. As Dr. Quarles says, “The ‘single eye’ is one that does not allow the allurement of wealth and possessions to distract him from God. Those who seek to divide their loyalties between God and financial success are victims of a blinding form of double vision. This double vision is as dangerous as the “double mind” or the “double heart.” Thus the good eye is one whose focus is fixed on God and whose vision is not blurred by focusing on two objects at the same time, God and possessions.”

I have in the past thought, I”ll serve God by working hard and making a bunch of money so that I can be generous and give towards the kingdom and support missions and do all sorts of good things. But the problem that I, and I think we, have is that when we get that bonus or that increase in pay or just some extra cash, or tendency is to just adopt our lifestyle to that extra amount of money. Sure maybe we increase our tithe a little bit more, but that extra disposable income is no longer really disposable. It’s how we live. That’s double vision. That’s not a single minded pursuit of God. It’s a pursuit of greed that’s masked in good things.

What’s interesting here is that “the themes of generosity toward others and singlehearted devotion to God coalesce to define the disciple’s proper view of possessions and riches” as one commentator says. What is your view of your possessions and riches? Are they your treasure or do you serve them?

When our eye is healthy, when we are singularly devoted to God, Jesus says we’re full of light. Whereas when our eye is bad, he says we’re full of darkness. Do you see the impact that your view of your material possessions has on your life? Do you see the impact that your view of the things you put your confidence has on you?

In 2 Cor. 6:14-15 Paul compares and contrasts darkness & light by tying it to righteousness. He says,

2 Corinthians 6:14–15 (ESV)

Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?

This is in the context of marriage, but the point remains the same. What fellowship has light with darkness? The two things can’t coexist at the same time. Jesus has called his disciples to “let their light shine before others, so that [others] may see their good works and glorify their Father in heaven.” You can’t let your light shine when you’re full of darkness. Greediness, masked in generosity, is still evil. “If your eye is bad, then your whole body will be full of darkness.” The problem with trying to pursue two things at once, both God & money is that in the end what you’re really devoted to will be seen. The darkness will take over. No room for the love of God or pursuit of the kingdom of righteousness will remain.

So church the question for us here is what are you devoted to? What are you pursuing? Does your bank account, does your time, does your use of your treasure or your talents declare that you have single or double vision?

Jesus concludes his instruction on treasures and vision with Matthew 6:24

Matthew 6:24 ESV

“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.

Here we see:

Kingdom People serve one master.

When I hear this passage or when you hear this verse you may begin to think based off of everything that we’ve talked about so far that Jesus is saying we should all be singularly devoted to God by serving in ministry. Or maybe you hear this and go, well, I’m pursuing making a lot of money, so clearly I’m not in pursuit of God. Now that might be the case. I’m happy to help you work through that later, but I think there’s two different ways to understand this. One is from our perspective and the other is from God’s.

From our perspective, let’s just make this personal for a second, can I manage a farm and serve as a pastor or is that me serving two masters? There absolutely is a daily opportunity to serve two masters in both of those areas. Whether it’s the call of ministry or the call of the farm, both have an opportunity to demand my time, my attention, and my very heart. I can get so wrapped up in trying to do a good job at teaching/preaching that you approve of me or I could get defiant in a way that says I won’t do this unless I get paid. In either one of those scenarios there is another master. It’s either your approval or money. The same thing can be said of the farm.

However, if my heart is with Christ and my treasures are in heaven and I am singularly devoted to him do you know what ministry becomes? Ministry just becomes a way for me to use the gifts and passions God has given me to grow the kingdom. Farming just becomes a way for me to use the gifts and passions I have to steward the land and affect people. Ministry and farming then are tools; they’re avenues in which I can serve the king without being owned by or serving one or the other.

That’s the bottom up view. That the view from our perspective. Now we can take this same verse and look at it from God’s perspective. Slavery is in our not so distant past and unfortunately still exists in places today. It was definitely prevalent during biblical times. A slave couldn’t be owned by two different masters. He might work for two different masters, but only one would own him. Otherwise, if he did he would end up preferring one over the other. It’s inevitable. And if he preferred one over the other how would he treat one over the other and serve on over the other?

When it comes to you storing up your treasures, when it comes to your vision and direction for your life, you cannot serve both God & money. As Lloyd-Jones says, “Both make a totalitarian demand upon us. Earthly treasures are so powerful that they grip the entire personality. They grip a man’s heart, his mind and his will; they tend to affect his spirit, his soul and his whole being.” And as Dr. Quarles says, “The greater one’s love for money grows, the more one’s love for God is diminished. The more one’s obsession for money increases, the more one’s passion for God decreases.” Either God is our master or something else is. There’s no in between; there’s no I’ll serve God on Sundays but Monday-Saturdays I’ll just live my life. If you like things black and white here it is as black and white as it gets. You’re either serving the Lord or serving mammon as the old translations say.

Our God is a jealous God who is jealous for his own glory but also jealous for your heart. He won’t put up with divided attention or with materialism because both of those things are false religion at their worst. The question for you is who do you serve? Do you have an undivided, single vision, pursuit of the Lord? Or are you adding a little Jesus to your life while storing up treasures on earth?

This passage is a hard one. Dr. Quarles concludes his commentary on it by saying, “The implication of Jesus’ teaching is that materialism is such a serious form of idolatry that it is absolutely incompatible with genuine Christian discipleship.” Tim Keller concludes with something similar. The main point Jesus is making is that Kingdom People single mindedly serve God. If that’s not you, then the question is are you truly a kingdom person? Are you truly a disciple of Jesus? Has he really saved you?

If your answer to that question is no, if he hasn’t really saved you then what better day to recognize your sin, repent of it and then seek the one who can satisfy you than on Mother’s Day? If Christ hasn’t saved you then today would you catch me after the service and I’d love to walk you through what it means to know the treasure of heaven.

For other’s in the room, the call of Jesus is for you to repent. It’s to recognize that you have been storing up for yourself earthly treasures and adding Jesus. Or that you’re vision has been blurred by the good things of this world. If that’s you, be reminded that the things of this earth will be destroyed, they will fall apart, or they will be taken from you. Christ and Christ alone is eternal, safe, and can’t be taken away. Look to him for your satisfaction.

Church, Kingdom People single mindedly serve God. Who are you serving? Let’s pray.