A Life of Rewards

What would you do for a Klondike bar?

Give people Klondike bars if they do something.

So, we just performed a really ancient ritual together. It’s called action and reward.

You do something, you get a Klondike bar

You go to the gym, you get stronger

You study well, you get good grades.

But, the inverse is also true!

You eat junk food your entire life, you’ll die earlier.

Never study, avoid hard work, and you’ll have a hard time having a good job

Did you know that this system also is true with being a follower of Jesus?

It’s not a strict give and receive, because Jesus gave everything for us and our job is to receive it. We’re broken people that are in need of grace, but there is something fascinating that happens when we become followers of Jesus, we’re supposed to start living differently!

The sermon on the mount is full of these! Don’t be angry, you’ll be happier! Pray like this, your life will be fuller! And we have two different actions and rewards that Jesus talks about today.

Matthew 6:16-24

Fasting

Matthew 6:16-18

So, we have talked about fasting in the past, but I’m guessing there are plenty of us here who weren’t there for that talk, so I’m going to briefly go over fasting!

What is fasting?

Fasting is to stop doing something, typically eating, for a short period of time (typically 12-24 hours, but it can be more)

People can fast from nearly anything: food, video games, coffee, YouTube, etc.

It’s a time to lay aside something to refocus on God.

So, it’s not stopping from doing something bad.

It’s not like you should “fast” from lying, you just shouldn’t do it at all. That’s not fasting, that’s just doing what you’re supposed to do.

Why do we fast?

We fast to define our dependence on God.

When we fast, it’s a way for us to communicate to God and us, “I care more about You than I do about my hunger pains.”

We fast to remove the power of an idol.

Anything that can be good can become an idol. Food is good, God made it! But, when we are more about food than we are about God, then we have a problem.

And this can be true of anything good! Relationships, food, video games, television, coffee: all of these aren’t inherently bad, but too much or too much focus will deeply affect your soul.

To move where our soul rests.

Your soul or heart or whatever you want to call it likes to make one thing the core of it’s being. It can be anything, but I think that it’s typically myself: my comfort, my control. I want to be comfortable and happy and in control, and anything that I can do to further that is what i’m going to do.

Fasting helps to remove that! You will get hungry and a little headachy and you’re just going to want to eat something just to make you feel better! And then you get too tell yourself, “I’m doing this because I love Jesus more than I love food. I don’t need food more than I need Jesus”

How do we fast?

That’s a great question!! Let’s talk about it.

First, pick what you’re going to fast from, and then pick a good day to do it.

For some of you, it will be a bad idea for you to fast from food for a long period. You’re not supposed to be hurting your body, it’s supposed to be pushing your soul. BUT, don’t let that be an excuse! Many of us can fast without any problem beyond being really hungry.

Pick a day that will work. Don’t skip food if you have a massive test or a football game that day.

Typically, if you’re doing food, a helpful thing is to go from dinner to dinner. So, if you’re going to fast on Wednesday, you start your fast after dinner or when you go to bed on Tuesday and then you eat dinner on Wednesday.

Don’t show off!

It’s really hard to fast typically. So, it can be easy to want to tell other people about it or look sad or hungry and then when someone asks to tel them, which is typically what we really want.

Resist that urge!

Jesus says that fasting gives you a reward, but that reward depends on what you want.

If we just fast because we want other people to like us or think that we’re just so much better than them, then you’ve already gotten your reward!

You think that you’re better than others, so your reward is to make other people think that you’re just, like, so cool because you did that.

If you think about it, that’s a really big bummer, because people thinking your cool for just skipping breakfast isn’t really worth the headache of skipping breakfast.

However, if we fast with the right heart of trying to submit ourselves to God and to make Him the center of our life, then that’s what we get!

What do you think that reward might be?

James 4:7–8 “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.”

Commit!

Actually do the fast, and then pray about it afterwards! See what God has been telling you in that time.

Take the time that you would normally do doing that thing and spend it worshipping or praying or spending time in the Word!

When we fast (and Jesus does say that we will fast), we can receive the rewards that Christ provides, but only with the right heart.

And then Jesus moves on to talk about a different kind of reward.

Treasure

Matthew 6:19-24

So, Jesus started out by talking about fasting and the rewards that we get from that, and then it seems that He switches to talking about rewards in a slightly different context.He calls them treasures.

Jesus says that we can either keep treasures on earth, which are temporary, or treasures in heaven, which are permanent.

Matthew 6:19–21 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.

What are treasures on earth?

Wealth

Popularity

People

Stuff

Security

What are treasures in heaven?

Fruit of the Spirit

Union with God.

vs. 21 is the theme verse for this. Wherever you place the core of your being, that’s where all of your own worth will come.

When we make money the determiner of our worth, then we will never be satisfied, because there’s always more money that you don’t have.

When we make popularity the determiner of our worth, then we will be crushed whenever we don’t look the best or don’t have the most friends.

If God is the core of our being, we can be confident that He loves us and is intimately involved in our lives because of His care for us.

The eye

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!

Jesus then adds two different metaphors to explain His point in a different way, first by talking about the eye.

He says that you can have a good eye or a bad eye, which is a metaphor (Jesus isn’t saying that you’re going to hell if you need glasses)

Good eye

Having “a good eye” was a common ancient phrase to mean that you were generous and loyal to your purpose.

So, Jesus says that if your eye is good (you are a generous and purposeful person) you will be full of light

Bad eye

If you were said to have a “bad eye,” that was taken to mean that you were greedy

Therefore, Jesus says that you will be full of darkness.

What is “light?

Life, joy, being with the triune God.

What is “darkness?”

Death and destruction

Two Masters

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.

You can only devote yourself to one thing.

What I mean is, you can like a lot of things, but the core of who you are can only be one thing.

Like we said earlier, at least for me, it’s typically comfort and control. Maybe it’s something else for you.

Jesus phrases it really well.

God or Mammon

Mammon is the true word instead of money.

Mammon technically means something like intense greed and love of wealth

It’s strict materialism, getting whatever you want whenever you want.

To serve mammon is to reject God completely and make yourself the object of all of your worship.

We will pick one or the other.

It will either be God at the center of your being, or it will be yourself.

So, I have a question for you:

What is the center of your life?

Is it Mammon, the god of success and money?

Is it comfort and control?

Is it feeling valued?

Is it feeling accepted?

All of these things you can put at the center of your life

Money will get you places, comfort feels good (duh), it feels good to feel needed and important. But I can tell you that it is a fleeting feeling. I can tell you for a fact that, in the face of the pain and loneliness of real life, a comma in your bank account is not going to make you feel much better.

On the other hand, life in Christ is a totally different reality.

You will find that your money matters less than what you’ve been given by the sacrifice of Jesus, that comfort is actually typically unsettling and that God pushes you into greater heights than you would have thought possible, that you are more valued and accepted in Jesus than you ever would have been without Him.

You were made with eternity in your soul, of course a life full of impermanence isn’t going to work for you! Jesus died on the cross to bring you into real, true, and full life! Let’s start living it!

Questions

Would you rather your hands always be sticky or always be slippery?

Why do we fast? What could you fast from?

What do you put your “treasure” in?

What is the reward of being a follower of Jesus?