Seek ye first (1) - Matthew 6:19-24 (Sunday November 10, 2024)
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Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Last week we looked at Jesus's blueprint for the Christian's prayer - the Lord's Prayer. The Lord tells us to being our prayer by saying what we want most of all:
God's name to be honoured
God's kingdom to come
God's will to be done
Then having made it clear what we want the most, we are ready to ask for practical help over provision, pardon, and protection.
The one who has trusted in Christ indeed wants God to be first in our life. But sometimes things get in the way.
In the passage today, Jesus talks about two hindrances to us putting God first in our lives:
He talks first about wealth
And then about poverty
The Lord wants to help us overcome thse hindrances and concludes with this promise:
But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.
Today we will just look at the first hindrance - wealth or material possessions.
In Proverbs, God gave a man called Agur these words to pray:
Remove falsehood and lies far from me;
Give me neither poverty nor riches—
Feed me with the food allotted to me;
Lest I be full and deny You,
And say, “Who is the Lord?”
Or lest I be poor and steal,
And profane the name of my God.
This prayer gives the clue to how to pvercome the desire for wealth, or the worry overy poverty, and seek first God’s kingdom and His righteousness..
Our Treasure - Where is our treasure?
Our Treasure - Where is our treasure?
The Lord first talks about treasure. Treasures are things that we value. That we think are worth making the effort to get. Jesus is asking “Where is your treasure”.
Treasure on earth
Treasure on earth
This would encompass things we enjoy in our life in this world. In particular, material possessions.
Your cloths, house, car, computer.
Money in the bank.
Work and its financial reward.
Jesus says, don’t lay up treasure on earth. The reason is, earthly possessions are not lasting.
Moth and rust destroys them. THings wear out, break down, and lose value. Our money loses its worth through inflation, taxes, economic changes. And the thief can take it away from us.
Even if we can retain things, they are only temporary. As Paul writes:
For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.
Treasure in heaven
Treasure in heaven
This treasure is something that doesn’t wear out or rot. It is eternal, not temporary. It is something that keeps its value beyond the grave. This treasure then is far more valuable and worth pursuing.
What might it include?
Work done for God’s kingdom to serve Christ.
Work done for God’s kingdom to serve Christ.
Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one’s work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is. If anyone’s work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.
Investing in the spiritual growth of others
Investing in the spiritual growth of others
Bringing them to faith in CHrist
Helping them to grow in faith and walk with Christ
Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stay true to the Lord. I love you and long to see you, dear friends, for you are my joy and the crown I receive for my work.
Building our own character through sanctification
Building our own character through sanctification
The virtues that we develop as we allow the Holy Spirit to conforms us to be like Christ prepare is and carry over into eternity. Even the troublesome times bring value in Christ.
Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
Acts of love and kindness towards others
Acts of love and kindness towards others
God notices and promises there is a reward for the faithful believer.
For whoever gives you a cup of water to drink in My name, because you belong to Christ, assuredly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.
For God is not unjust to forget your work and labor of love which you have shown toward His name, in that you have ministered to the saints, and do minister.
What is your treasure?
What is your treasure?
Wealth of its own is neutral. It is not wrong to have possessions. The new testament talks about several rich people. For example, Zacchaeus totally changed in his attitude towards his earthly treasures after the Lord spotted him in a tree and had dinner with him. But he didn’t give away all his possessions, but he did give back to those he had stolen from.
Mary the mother of Mark, one of the first Christians, didn’t sell her house and give the money to the poor. But she did allow it to be used as one of the first house churches.
Barnabas sold one of his fields to give money to the poor. But he kept the other possessins.
The question Jesus asks is what do you treasure? What do you wake up each morning and live for? Treasure in heaven or treasure on earth.
For where you treasure is, there your heart is also. The thing we treasure cuts through the gloss we put on and reveals what is really in your heart.
Illustration
Illustration
A woman met a friend of her father’s who had not seen him for many years. The woman’s father was a devout Christian, so she found great joy in telling his old acquaintance about her dad’s trust in the Lord, and the way he faced suffering, trials, and even the prospect of death.
The friend, however, had lived a different kind of life. Having given himself over completely to earning money and hoarding every cent he could, he had become very wealthy. But he didn’t have the same glad anticipation of the future as his friend did. He explained it to the daughter in this way: “Your father can be more optimistic about heaven than I for a very simple reason. He is going to his treasure. I’ll be leaving mine!”
Our Eye - How do we see our treasure?
Our Eye - How do we see our treasure?
In verses 22 and 23, the Lord talks about our eye and how do we see the treasures we have.
The two verses are a bit hard to understand, but Jesus spoke them in the context of our possession and what our heart attitude is towards them.
The Lord first uses the physical illustration of our eyes. It is only through our eyes that we have light to see things around us and where we are going.
If our eyes are good and healthy, we clearly see.
If our eyes are bad and unhealthy, we won’t see a thing.
What was it Jesus was describing? A clue comes from how the Jewish people used this idea of good and bad eyes and our possession.
He who has a generous eye will be blessed,
For he gives of his bread to the poor.
A man with an evil eye hastens after riches,
And does not consider that poverty will come upon him.
The good eye then is one that looks on the things that we possess and holds them loosely. This is one who does not hoard for themselves, but with a generous heart is ready to give them away to others in need. It is someone who sees them as temporary, entrusted to us by God to invest in treasure in heaven. They are the ones that put God first.
Conversely, the bad or evil eye is one who keeps their possessions tightly to themselves. Who is reluctant to give, and seeks to get more and more. They are ones who do not put God first.
Just as bad eyes bring blindness that makes a person’s life one of darkness, so a person whose heart is set on earthly treasures is in spiritual darkness and blind to God.
When a person has the right attitude to their possessions, they have a generous spirit to those around them. And so the light of God guides them in their actions.
The Lord mentions an additional problem that the person with the bad eye might have. And that is that they think they actually have light. This is one of the most serious spiritual conditions a person can have - when their heart convinces them they have spiritual light, but in fact they are in darkness.
“The heart is deceitful above all things,
And desperately wicked;
Who can know it?
I, the Lord, search the heart,
I test the mind,
Even to give every man according to his ways,
According to the fruit of his doings.
We should echo David’s prayer to have God search our heart and let us know its true state:
Search me, O God, and know my heart;
Try me, and know my anxieties;
And see if there is any wicked way in me,
And lead me in the way everlasting.
How might a person with a bad, or selfish, eye towards earthly treasure deceive themselves into thinking they have a good eye?
I’m just being prudent in storing up all my money
I’m keeping it for a good purpose
I deserve to enjoy it - I own it because God let me earn it.
So Paul later advises those who have earthly possessions:
Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy. Let them do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share, storing up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.
And those who work:
Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need.
Our Master - Who is our master?
Our Master - Who is our master?
“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.
Jesus drives home the application in verse 24 in asking us who do we serve? Who is our master? Who do we worship?
God or Mammon.
Mammon is an Aramaic word that means wealth, or money. or riches. Earthly treasure. Jesus is personifying earthly treasure and asking who is our master? Is it God? Or is it earthly treasure.
In the New Testament word in which Jesus lived, a master had absolute rights of life and death over his slave.
Nowadays it is possible for people to have two or more jobs. Although in all the jobs I have done, my employment contract said I would not work for anyone else. But it is possible to have more than two jobs.
But in Jesus’s day it was impossible for a slave to have been the property of two owners at the same time. The master demanded absolute possession of the slave.
Is a slave ever got into a position of having two masters, the result would be the slave would have to choose between the two. Loving only one and hating the other.
In the same way, we cannot trully be serving God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength as Jesus says we should if we are devoting our time, energy, priorities to building up earthly treasures and using them for ourselves.
God demands that we serve Him. That we walk worthy of our calling in Christ. And that means we hold the possessions He has given us loosly, being ready to generously use them to help others who are in need that God places in our paths.
Application
Application
The Lord Jesus Himself has set the example. As God, Jesus owns everything. But He gave up everything for our sakes:
For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.
Of course we do not choose to serve God for heavenly rewards. But we love Him, who first loved us and sent His son to take away our sin through His death on the cross.
Christ sets us free from being a slave to sin. We can now, through God’s Spirit within us, change to stop living for our selves. But for Him who loved us and gave Himself for us. And as Jesus has shown in these verses, the proof and evidence that God is at work in us is in our changed attitude towards our possessions.
I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
Our possessions and the ability to work are gifts from God. He commands that we use them to take care of our families
But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
He asks though that we serve Him and seek first His kingdom with our wealth. To put Him first and ask Him how we can use our possessions to serve others in His kingdom.
Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need.
As Christians, we need to think of ourselves as travelers who are just passing through this sinful world. We are not permanent residents, but pilgrims on a journey to a better land. Therefore, we need to “travel light,” not burdening ourselves with an undue attachment to the material things of life. The more we care for the luxuries and possessions of earth, the more difficult will be our journey to heaven.
The story is told about some Christians who were traveling in the Middle East. They heard about a wise, devout, beloved, old believer, so they went out of their way to visit him. When they finally found him, they discovered that he was living in a simple hut. All he had inside was a rough cot, a chair, a table, and a battered stove for heating and cooking. The visitors were shocked to see how few possessions the man had, and one of them blurted out, “Well, where is your furniture?” The aged saint replied by gently asking, :Where is yours?” The visitor, sputtering a little, responded, “Why, at home, of course. I don’t carry it with me, I’m traveling.” “So am I,” the godly Christian replied. “So am I.”
This man was practicing a basic principle of the Bible: Christians must center their affections on Christ, not on the temporal things of this earth.
If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.