MATTHEW 6:19-24 - Newer, Better, Bigger, Faster

Introduction

Back in my radio days, I spent some time in the sales office, where we were sent to a one-day seminar with a radio marketing specialist on how to increase advertising revenues. As part of his presentation he talked about some of the most effective ways to motivate potential sponsors to advertise, quoting the old Michael Douglas line from the movie Wall Street: “Greed is good!” He told us that convincing people of how much more money they would make if they advertised (or better yet, how many of their customers were going to their competitors because of their advertising!) was a powerful inducement to get people to sign up for your radio station’s ads. (Wasn’t the most appropriate tactic to recommend to a Christian radio station, but the other secular stations ate it up!)

But this is the way of the world, isn’t it? Advertisers spend billions of dollars to put popups on our phones, billboards on our highways, commercials on our TV’s (hit “pause” on a streaming service these days and an ad pops up!) because they know that if they can awaken your greed or your envy or your shame or your “Fear Of Missing Out”, they can steer you. It’s why people line up overnight at an Apple Store to spend thousands of dollars on the newest iPhone when it will be obsolete in six months—what Mike Easley, past president of Moody Bible Institute, called the need for “newer better bigger faster.”

The ease by which we are all of us controlled by a desire for “stuff” is a fundamental and irresistible condition of our fallen human nature. Adam and Eve saw the tree that would fill their bellies, taste good and make them Very Special People—and all of their children ever since have been unable to resist “the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, the boastful pride of life”.

But here in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is describing a new way to be human—a reborn humanity that is not driven by “newer better bigger faster”, that cannot be manipulated by the materialism that drives our world. In the verses before us this morning, Jesus turns from the inner life of a believer (giving, prayer and fasting before “your Father Who sees what is done in secret”), and moves to the public-facing side of the New Birth: how do you navigate the constant, incessant pressure to earn more, buy more, have more, keep more?

This is what I want you to see this morning—what these verses are showing you is that

The world has no HOLD on a Christian whose HEART is set on HEAVEN

You can feel the tug of it on your own heart even now, can’t you? How many times this past week were you tempted to mash that Amazon “Buy Now” button? How often did you make your purchasing decisions based on wanting to fit in with everyone else’s possessions, or accumulating more because you “work hard and deserve it”? How often did you straight up go and buy something because it made you feel better or relieved some stress or made you happy? How often did you go seeking for some kind of treasure this past week?

Now, make no mistake—in these verses Jesus does not say that it is automatically wrong to seek to accumulate treasure—to seek to gather what is good and valuable. The issue is in what kind of treasure you are seeking. And the reason that the world has no hold on you, Christian, is first of all because

I. You don't want the TREASURE they want you to have (Matthew 6:19-21)

Look at verses 19-20:

Matthew 6:19–20 (LSB)

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. “But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal;

Note it well—Jesus does not say “do not store up treasure”—He says that what matters is what kind of treasure you pursue! The things that this world tells you to chase after will all fade someday. The shiny new smartphone will wind up in a drawer with all your other obsolete gadgets someday. The new car will eventually run out of warranty (and the next day start breaking down!) That beautiful home will eventually need the roof replaced, the wiring redone, the kitchen torn out and upgraded. That exciting new job will become a drag, that strong and healthy body will start breaking down someday, that hundred-dollar bill in your pocket will buy less and less as the days go on.

Jesus makes it clear everything you treasure in this world is going to disappoint you eventually. So choose your treasures wisely—choose instead the treasures that will not fade away; that will not corrode or rust or mildew, that will not be eaten by vermin or stolen by thieves. Jesus says absolutely seek to store up treasure—but make it the right kind of treasure!Jesus spoke of that treasure later in Matthew’s Gospel in the parable of the talents:

Matthew 25:21 (LSB)

“His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’

And the Apostle Paul had set his sights on the “incorruptible crown” of glory that he was striving for:

1 Corinthians 9:24–27 (LSB)

Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win. Now everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible. Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the air; but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.

What is “running without aim” but a striving after treasure that will fade? What is “boxing as beating the air” but spending all of your strength and vigor and time to accumulate treasure that will crumble in your hands? Jesus commands you strive to gain that incorruptible treasure!

And so what do you do with all this world’s fading, decaying, rusting “treasure?” God’s Word tells you that

You can use what is FADING to secure what LASTS (cp. Luke 16:1-9)

In the passage we read earlier, Jesus tells the story of the embezzling manager who used his master’s wealth to get himself in good with other employers. Jesus concludes this parable by saying

Luke 16:9 (LSB)

“And I say to you, make friends for yourselves from the wealth of unrighteousness, so that when it fails, they will take you into the eternal dwellings.

Use the fading, failing, unreliable treasure of this world to store up for yourself imperishable treasure! Whatever earthly treasures you have, they are already fading and falling apart—so it just makes sense to use them to store up treasure in Heaven! Make that lovely house you live in a home where the Gospel shines in hospitality and grace and light; look at that job as an opportunity to get to know people who need to hear about the Good News of Christ that you never would have met otherwise; use that shiny new phone to pull in solid Biblical teaching through podcasts, ebooks and videos that will strengthen your faith and sharpen your hunger for Christ.

20th Century martyr Jim Elliot was right when he said “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose”—use the fading, temporary wealth of this world to store up for yourself treasure that lasts!

And consider for a moment what Jesus tells you about earthly treasure—it will all fade, it will all disappoint, it will all let you down eventually. Your earthly “stuff” simply cannot satisfy your soul, because your soul was designed for eternal delight. As soon as you put the expectation on your earthly possessions to provide you with eternal satisfaction, they will fall apart in your hands. It is only when you see them for what they really are—temporary, fading moments of happiness that are only truly useful so far as they enable you to serve God faithfully.

When you see your earthly treasures as Jesus teaches, and see your eternal treasures as your real joy, then

Your HEART can never be BROKEN (v. 21)

Jesus says in verse 21

Matthew 6:21 (LSB)

for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

If your real treasure is in your closet and garage and bank and barn, then you are destined for heartbreak. But if your real treasure is in the “Well Done” that awaits you on the Last Day; if your real treasure is in the glory to be revealed in you at the coming of Christ, then nothing this world can do can threaten your joy! A Christian has no “handles” by which the world can steer him, because all this world can do is take away “treasures” that were falling apart anyway! “Let goods and kindred go”, because your real treasure is with Christ in Heaven! Your real treasure is the imperishable crown of righteousness that Christ has purchased for you by His blood—when your heart is set on that, Christian, what can this world take from you that can trouble your joy?

This world has no hold on a Christian whose heart is set on heaven—you don’t want the treasure they want you to have, and in verses 22-23 Jesus says

II. You don't walk by the LIGHT they want you to follow (Matthew 6:22-23)

Matthew 6:22–23 (LSB)

“The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, 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 that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

The Greek word translated “clear” in the LSB (and “good” in the NIV or “healthy” in the ESV) seems to convey the idea that you have a clear-eyed vision of the world. You do not have “double-vision”, as it were, of divided treasure between temporal and eternal. You are not trying to live your life according to two conflicting worlds.

This is crucial for us, isn’t it, beloved? Because every one of us lives at the friction point of two utterly incompatible worldviews every day of our lives, don’t we? The materialism of “newer better bigger faster” all comes down, when you think about it, to an entire worldview that says that the entire cosmos is engaged in the “newer better bigger faster” of evolutionary processes.

This Universe (so it is claimed) is merely the result of time and chance acting on matter—a series of mutations and random chance “improvements” that led from a single-celled organism on to fish, then reptiles and birds and mammals and eventually humans. Everything you see and experience is nothing more than random mutations of one thing into another (which is why, in this worldview, a boy can turn into a girl or a girl into a boy, or into another type of gender altogether.)

There is no fixed order, there is no standard of right and wrong. In the words of John Lennon’s atheistic anthem, “Imagine there’s no Heaven / it’s easy if you try / No Hell below us / Above us only sky.” If that is the reality of this world, then there is no ultimate meaning to this world. We are all just a bunch of atoms banging against each other until the stars burn out, and nothing ultimately matters. So why not spend as much time in the short, meaningless space of time between the Big Bang and the heat death of the Universe accumulating as much “stuff” as you can and creating whatever “meaning” the fizzing chemicals in your brain pan happen to turn out?

If that is the light that you live by, then “how great is the darkness in you!” But you are not walking by that light, are you, Christian?

Your WORLDVIEW begins with GOD (v. 22; cp. John 3:19-21)

Jesus uses the image of darkness and light elsewhere in the Gospels to illustrate the contrast between good and evil:

John 3:19–21 (LSB)

“And this is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. “For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light lest his deeds be exposed. “But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been done by God.”

Christian, your starting point for understanding the nature of the world around you does not begin with the presupposition that everything is just “time and chance acting on matter”. Your worldview begins with what Dan Philips called “the most radical belief in all the Bible”—the one statement that puts you instantly and irreconcilably at odds with every other atheistic, materialistic, evolutionary worldview—the most radical belief that you hold, Christian, is that you believe Genesis 1:1 and everything that implies.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth—that means He governs it, He has established purpose for it, He guides and upholds it, He has ordained what is right and wrong, and He has utter and incontrovertible authority over all of us. And that is why this worldview is hated and despised and rejected—because to confess that God created the world is to confess that He has authority over us.

That is the clear-eyed, single purpose that brings light to your body, your life, your understanding of this world. To understand that God created this world perfect and pure, but that it has been marred and broken by the rebellion of our First Parents Adam and Eve, whose rebellion and sin we have inherited.

And because our worldview begins with God and His creation of the world, and our subsequent fall from Him, Christian,

You will not TRUST your own “ LIGHT” (v. 23; cp. Jer. 17:9; Prov. 16:25; Ps. 119:105)

Jesus warns us in verse 23:

Matthew 6:23 (LSB)

“But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

Jesus warns us to watch out that “the light that is in us is not darkness”. Because the world around us constantly tries to convince us to trust the most unreliable source of light there is! Everything you hear around you tells you to “follow your heart”, “trust your heart”, listen to your inner voice”, “let your inner light guide you”… It is everywhere, it is all pervasive, and it is a whisper from the pit of Hell itself. Because God’s Word—the source of your light, Christian—tells you

Jeremiah 17:9 (LSB)

“The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can know it?

and

Proverbs 16:25 (LSB)

There is a way which seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death.

Follow the so-called “light” of this world’s teachings, and the “light” in you will be a light that guides you to damnation. But your light, Christian, comes from what God has declared to you in His Word:

Psalm 119:105 (LSB)

Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path.

Christian, when your heart is set on heaven, this world’s notion of wisdom and “enlightenment” will have no hold on you—your worldview begins with God, and because you believe Him in His Word you will not trust your own “inner light”. When the world around you is chasing “newer, better, bigger, faster”, you know better. The world has no hold on you, beloved, when your heart is set on Heaven—you don’t want the treasures they want you to have, you don’t walk by the light they want you to follow. And all of this comes down to one thing—one reason the world has no hold on you. Because

III. You don't love the MASTER they want you to love (Matthew 6:24)

See it here in verse 24:

Matthew 6:24 (LSB)

“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.

The word translated “serve” here in the original Greek can also be translated “enslaved”—it’s possible to have two employers—a lot of people have two jobs, after all—but it is possible to only be owned by one slavemaster.

Jesus sets up two slavemasters here, God and wealth (the King James uses an Aramaic word, mammon, referring to accumulated material possessions and resources.) Jesus says that these two slavemasters are immensely jealous—neither of them will share their slaves with the other.

And he also says that there is an inevitable animosity that will grow up in the hearts of the slaves they own—Mammon’s slaves will hate God, and God’s slaves will hate Mammon. Mark well what Jesus is warning here about your possessions, because He is saying here that

Wealth is not NEUTRAL (cp. 1 Tim. 6:10)

Jesus makes it clear here that wealth and God are rivals for your affections. Wealth and the desire for it will affect you spiritually if you let it. 1 Timothy 6:10 is a verse that is often misquoted as “money is the root of all evil—but the actual verse is saying the same thing as Jesus is saying here. 1 Timothy 6:10 says

1 Timothy 6:10 (LSB)

For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evils, and some by aspiring to it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

When I was a kid I remember going to the PT store in DuBois, where the Giant Eagle is now. Outside the store they had one of those old coin-operated race horse rides—remember those? Every once in a while Mom would spring for a quarter for me to climb up and ride there for sixty seconds of rocking back and forth. Funny thing was, though, we had plenty of actual horses to ride at home! The difference was, the coin-operated horse wasn’t going to run away with me!

Beloved, this is what Jesus is warning you about wealth. Too many people think that their wealth is just a coin operated horse outside a department store that they can put the quarter into and ride. But Mammon is no dime-store rocking horse—it is a two-year-old thoroughbred stallion. It will run away from you if you don’t know what you’re doing. It will cause you to wander away from the faith if you give it its head, it will cause you to pierce yourself with many griefs if you do not master it, it will cause you to despise God if you let it.

So is the solution then, as many Christians have done, to utterly reject wealth, possessions and comforts and vow absolute poverty? Is wealth then inherently evil? When you consider the Scriptures, and see how God abundantly blessed men like Abraham and Job and Solomon in the Old Testament, it becomes clear that wealth in and of itself is not evil.

In fact, when you turn to the Gospels you see godly men and women who were not enslaved to Mammon—see in their examples how you are to

Make your wealth a SLAVE to God (cp. Luke 8:3; Matt. 27:57-60)

Luke 8:3 introduces us to

Luke 8:3 (LSB)

... Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod’s manager, and Susanna, and many others who were ministering to [Jesus and the disciples] from their possessions.

And in Matthew 27 we read of

Matthew 27:57 (LSB)

...a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who himself had also become a disciple of Jesus.

who took Jesus corpse from Pilate

Matthew 27:60 (LSB)

and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock; and he rolled a large stone against the entrance of the tomb and went away.

Christian, nothing demonstrates that you are not enslaved to the false god of Mammon as when you freely give your wealth away for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven! When you consider the lavish lifestyles that a member of King Herod’s court could have lived, when you consider that by the Second Temple period in which Jesus lived that most stone tombs were simply re-used because the cost of hewing a new stone tomb was prohibitive for all but the most wealthy individuals, you see just how much Joannah and Susannah and Joseph loved Christ and His Kingdom more than their own comfort! Their hearts were not enslaved to Mammon; they loved God and disregarded their own wealth!

The world has no hold on the people whose heart is set on Heaven—one of God’s great kindnesses to our church family here at Bethel is the joyful generosity of a people who love God’s Kingdom more than their own treasures. We are not a wealthy church; we live and work in a rural economy that limits upward mobility. And we are not a numerous congregation; we average between 35 and 45 people on a given Sunday. And yet in the past two years there have been only a handful of Sundays when the morning offering has been less than a thousand dollars.

I do not say this to manipulate or boast or flatter. I do not say it in the manner of a manipulating midnight TV infomercial preacher only trying to wring a few more dollars out of his listeners. But in light of God’s Word open before us here this morning I say as one of the shepherds of this flock that this is a people who love God’s Kingdom more than their own treasures.

This is a people who have given freely and generously so that neighborhood children have school supplies who would otherwise not afford them—remembering widows and orphans in their affliction as God commands (James 1:27), a people who give without hesitation so that young people can go on missions trips that open their eyes to the white harvest fields of souls (John 4:35) and ask themselves if God would have them spend their earthly treasure of youth and vigor for the sake of those beyond the reach of the Gospel.

This is a church that gladly and openhandedly gives so that Gospel-saturated, Kingdom-building curricula can be purchased so that precious little ones can be brought up in the nurture and admonition of the LORD.

This is a church that joyfully contributes to ministries to at-risk teens in Bellwood, abortion-vulnerable women in Punxsy, secularized families in South Africa, Jewish communities in New York and New Jersey and Turkish Muslims in Asia—eagerly trading your fading, corruptible wealth for the eternal, unfading treasure of salvation for their never-dying souls.

And so my exhortation to you is this, beloved: Make every effort to excel still more in the way you are pleasing God with the fading treasures of your money, your possessions, your strength, your ambitions, your homes, your careers, your relationships. Be a people who have no eye for “newer, better, bigger faster” in this world, and you will be a people who cannot be steered by the powers of this world!

A movie came out several years ago about the life of Christian music artist Rich Mullins. It’s called Ragamuffin, and I commend it to you highly (it’s not a kids’ movie, by any stretch, but it is a good film about a deeply complex and talented Christian man). There is a scene in the later half of the movie where Mullins is being confronted by his record label to make changes to his music and his ministry in order to appeal to a wider non-Christian audience. When Mullins complains that all they want is to make more money, one executive fires back: “Don’t hand me that; you love the money as much as anyone. How about that fancy new motorcycle you’re riding everywhere? You like that bike, don’t you?” To which Mullins replies, “You know what? You’re right.” He takes the keys out of his pocket and hands them to the record exec, and says “Here. It’s yours now.” And walks out of the office. The record producer turns to another executive and says, “What kind of man doesn’t care about wealth and doesn’t care about anyone’s opinion but God’s?” And the answer comes, “A dangerous man.”

Christian, this is what you are when your heart is set on Heaven. You are dangerous to a world that keeps control over people with who are obsessed with being thought highly of, people who are always chasing after “newer better bigger faster”. The Christian who wants nothing but Heaven, the Christian who fears no one but God, the Christian who has his heart set on the infinitely satisfying, incorruptible glory of that “Well done, good and faithful servant”—that is a believer who cannot be stopped. Pray that God would continue to wean you off of the deceptive charms of this fading world so that there would be nothing to hold you back from chasing the eternal treasure of the glory of God revealed on earth as it is in Heaven.

What do Jesus’ words reveal in your own heart this morning? Where is your treasure? Is your heart set on the “Well done, good and faithful servant” from the lips of your Savior on the Last Day, or are you far more interested in the admiration and recognition that you can get from your career?

Do you hold on to your possessions and your wealth and your influence and your reputation with everything that you have because the thought of losing your house or your car or your job utterly terrifies you, or are you content to see any or all of it crumble to dust if only Christ is magnified in some way through it whether you keep it or lose it?

Are your prayers for God’s Kingdom to be magnified in your life, or are you always trying to barter with God—"God, just let me get this raise and I promise I’ll give an offering in church every week!”

It is not for nothing that Jesus warns that the heart that loves its stuff is a heart that hates God. Friend, if the things of God’s Kingdom—worship, prayer, His Word, fellowship with His people, becoming more like Christ in your everyday life—is less appealing to you than the latest smartphone or compound bow or boat motor or .38 Special or gaming console or deer rifle, if time spent in the gathered worship of God’s people is less important to you than a chance to pick up some time and a half weekend pay, then I beg you to consider Jesus’ warning here: Because when you persist in loving those things you will always wind up in the end with a heart that despises God.

If you can’t hold all of those things lightly; if you aren’t willing to see the idolatry in them or confess that they hold a greater place in your affections than God Himself, if you are governed by them instead of governing them for the sake of His glory, then the only way out is to turn away from all of it. Confess your sin of loving the world more than God; plead with Him to grant you repentance so that you can leave all those crumbling treasures behind so that you can gain the one true treasure that will never fade—forgiveness for your idolatrous heart, and a new heart that finds its highest and truest and sharpest delight in your Savior, Jesus Christ!

BENEDICTION:

1 Timothy 6:13–16 (LSB)

I charge you in the presence of God... that you keep the commandment without stain or reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which He will bring about at the proper time—He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see. To Him be honor and eternal might! Amen.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION: Write down something you learned from this morning’s message that is new to you, or an insight that you had for the first time about the text? ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Write down a question that you have about the passage that you want to study further or ask for help with: ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Write down something that you need to do in your life this week in response to what God has shown you from His Word today: ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Additional Notes: ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________