MAtthew 6:19-24
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Intro
Intro
I want to tell you a story about the greatest tour guide I've ever had. Not even necessarily the greatest tour, but the greatest tour guide. I'm unfortunately forgotten his name, but he remains in my memory as the most incredible tour guide I've ever had. We were touring Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, the homebase of the reformation in Martin Luther. This is the church where Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door.
The tour guide we had could trace his lineage back seven centuries to Wittenburg itself. That means his family line existed before Luther even arrived in in the 16th century. Also, he was a second generation tour guide for Castle Church. His father had been a tour guide for Castle Church in the 40s. So as he told us, his memory of the church existed started when he was a kid. He has memories of as a kid climbing around the artifice of castle. Church was father gave tours. As you can imagine, his tour was incredible and gave us all sorts of information and knowledge and personal illustrations and understandings of the church. The location of the tour was incredible. But the tour guide opened up a whole new understanding to what the location was all about.
the tour guide opened up a whole new understanding of the tour
Today we are going to talk about how we are guided. And how we are guided is always looked at through what we most treasure.
Your treasures are your tour guides.
Whatever you treasure the most is what is guiding you around and navigating your world. That's good if you tour guide is good you learn about the world you learn about others you grow with your relationships. It's difficult if your tour guide is not that great
So the thing that you have to discern is
What or who are your tour guides?
And are they reliable?
That is what we are going to talk about today.
Whatever we treasure the most we follow. And Jesus gives us the right sense of what our treasures are and why we are called to store them up in heaven rather than on earth.
This morning we will look to define what you love
because you are already organized for what you love.
And then the call will be to organize what you love.
Define what you love
Define what you love
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal,
- There is a contrast here. Jesus refers to treasures on earth. Things that we accumulate and value. But that these treasures, things that we value, are ultimately lacking. They rust, they disintegrate and people can steal them. This points to the way in which our desires are disordered. We love things to the point of caring for them, not in a way that is loving toward them, but in the way that is only protective of them. We often love something for what it does for us, not for what it is.
- Jesus is warning us that these ultimately will not be enough.
We have to define what we love.
And the problem is What we love and what is most valuable are not always the same thing
ypu might love something that is nostalgic to you but not valuable . And that is just fine but we can get tripped up in this love vs value issues
We are often so easily influenced by what is best but by what is easiest, or most fun, or convenient, by what is safe or what’s dangerous. What determines the quickest sense of self.
Wendell Berry calls this kind of quick solution life in consumerism a helpless dependence. We are caught in feel we have no other option.
But that is a short term solution to a persisting problem that doesn’t just go away. We treat the symptoms not the actual problem.
Jesus, our great surgeon, gives us the diagnosis and gives us our course of treatment.
but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.
- Instead there are things that are eternal that are worthwhile.
Because when we understand that there are things that are bigger than us, and we find those in God, then it is worthwhile investing in those things. Placing our securities in those things.
Because it is in those things that we will finally find security.
- Jesus speaks this way about the kingdom of Heaven in Matthew. That it is worth investing in. That it is worthwhile giving your life to, your treasures to.
- The Parable of the Hidden Treasure
“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.
He tells us that when we find something worthwhile, something valuable, we will sell everything else we have in order to secure what is most valuable. We will easily uproot what is valuable if we find something more valuable.
The question for us this morning is what is it you find the most valuable? Paul gives us a sense of the value of Christ as ultimate in the book of Philippians.
though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—
Paul clearly defines what it is he loves the most. And in contrast, everything is just a little less.
We are asked to define what it is we love. Because you are organized by what it is you love the most.
This is the surprising thing here. This is not just simply a choice. You are already choosing. You are already in the mix. You are operating by what it is you love the most.
Look at what Jesus says in the next passage
You are already organized for what you love
You are already organized for what you love
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!
- Jesus is not just saying that it is good and valuable in it of itself that the Kingdom of God is worthwhile, He is also saying, you will follow whatever it is you Love the most.
- That is very good. But quickly difficult.
- Because if what you love is good, it’s good
- But if what you love is bad, things will become difficult.
- We will make room in our lives for whatever we love the most. That is a human standard.
- Jesus is just kind enough to point it out to us.
That is what is meant by the light of the body. What we love is our end, it affects our attention our time, it affects how we see.
The ancient understanding is that the the eye as lamp was the entrance into the body. It was an entrance into what came in and out. So our ability to understand anything was through the filter of the eye. If the eyes is good, as the saying goes, so will the rest of the body. The body will be full of light. If the eye is bad, there cannot be any light.
One area affects all the areas.
That’s what Jesus is getting at. How we look at our ultimate loves, our ultimate ends will light up or darken the rest of us.
If we find our treasures in lesser ends we will only see in partial, in darkness. Treasures in heaven are the better ultimate end.
this is the Christian life. The idea of the Christian life is to get in on the whole thing, to see a full life, to not leave anything out. We often too easily think it's about what we should not or cannot do. But the true reality behind the Christian life is to see just how much of life we can understand through the eyes and navigation of our Lord Jesus. Jesus is offering us the ability to see because
You are what you love in a very practical way.
Where you spend your time and what you spend your money on our definitions of what you love.
So to truly love, something is not just simply to feel it, but is to practice it. To enact it. To confess it.
So when we talk about love for God, we want to love with our desire, but the way to doing that will often be through the gathering of the Saints and the singing of worship And the confessing of the creed and the reading of scripture.
If Love happens through how we spend time and what we spend our money on, we want to make sure that we’re practicing the things that matter.
That’s why we invite you into Service Here this morning. That’s why we invite you to serve in the church. To enact what it is you love if in fact you love God. That’s why we talk about giving as discipleship as formation as following Christ. Because whatever it does you love your account will follow. So giving us a practice that allows us to state what we love.
When the church began to tithe 10% of our income to missions in 2019, it was a confession of love for God and his world. It was because we wanted to say that that as we’re asking the church to give, we’re also going to give to what we love. The church in the world through missions. So when we ask about giving it is an act of love for God.
What we are talking about here is your life in Christ. One that beholds the treasures in heaven as you see God’s work in you. As you invest in the kingdom, you are tangibly expressing your love for God, tangibly expressing your heart to see His kingdom advance.
we give 10 percent as a church as a model and challenge to invite families to tithe to Gods work as well to consider what it means for you as a family to invest in Gods kingdom
so when we talk about giving it is in the mode of discipleship. It is the opportunity to invest in Gods kingdom
so as we talk about organizing what you love this is a time to have a conversation with God
Organize what you love
Organize what you love
“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 an apt warning. Because Jesus doesn’t only tell us to choose, he tells us we have to.
Blaise Pascal agrees when he states:
“You have to wager. It is not up to you, you are already committed.”
We are already in. We have already wagered.
And Jesus is challenging that wager. That in the end we cannot serve both God and money.
Not that we shouldn’t, but rather Jesus is showing that it is impossible.
We will love one and hate the other.
We can either serve the God who keeps us helpless for the God who offers us help.
This does not mean that we are to shed all the use of money. The better understanding of the word money here is more like the possessions that money can buy. But it doesn’t escape the idea that
But all throughout the NT Jesus reveals that money is one of the most tangible expressions that show what you love.
How you demonstrate what you love is by what you accumulate with how you spend your money.
When we come to passages like this and we are called into challenge. We are called to give up what we would normally not otherwise want to (which is why it is so hard).
The challenge of the Christian is to define our lives and follow after God with everything. It is a worthwhile human endeavor. But like every worthwhile human endeavor, it will bring challenge.
Because we have to look at what we love and what we are Called to love.
We talk about giving in the church because it is an act of discipleship. It is a reflection of the life we have in Christ.
We have to be challenged in these areas because they are the areas that have so much of our heart.
This is the better offer in Christ
This is the solution that JEsus brings us to. We are called to store up treasures in heaven becasuse everything else will waste away. It will not be enough. We are called to choose whom we will serve, because we can only serve one.
again:
What or who are your tour guides?
And are they reliable?
Herman MElvilles first novel is called redburn. The story is told about Wellingborough Redburn
whose father dies and has no other means to live
he signs up to voyage as cabin boy across atlantic
father had spent a lot of time travelling
took a travel book about Liverpool, the place where he was going. And on the voyage he studied it.
He memorize dpages and pictures. He understood the maps. He familiarized himself with the 50 year old guidebook
When he arrived he hastily made his way to the castle in the city. The one he had seen and studied in the book.
Looked for a castle but found a tavern. He was stymied
Undeterred he Looked for widows hotel that was marked by his father pen. a place he had stayed before
But the hotel had been knocked down 30 years prior. a statue was in it’s place
The book, the guidebook was useless. It was unreliable.
When we invest in the kingdom. When we give of ourselves, storing up for things that cannot rust we are communicating we have a reliable guide. Someone who is worthwhile and can lead us. The living God does not promise castles and return taverns.
He holds true. And when we give and invest in the kingdom we agree with God on God’s terms.
What has Christ’s giving offered us? Where are we because of Christ’s giving?
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
