Treasure in Heaven

Series: Sermon on the Mount

Title: Treasure in Heaven

Author: Brandt

Key: Scripture. Slides. Media. Production. Story/Breath.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome. Happy Wednesday y’all! If we haven’t met, my name’s [Name Slate Slide], I’d love to meet you after service, especially if it’s your first time here.

Hook. One of my favorite things about my job is getting to hear about all of the things y’all are so good at. Is anybody here REALLY good at something that doesn’t matter? Like you’re crazy good at something that doesn’t add a ton of value to your life?

[Communicator Note: Share something that you’ve spent a lot of time and energy on that ultimately turned out to be a waste of time. Think opportunity cost, if I had invested my time and talents elsewhere, where would my life be now?]

Personally, I really LOVE video games. I don’t play them often anymore, because like I said, I REALLY LOVE video games. I grew up playing video games every day, and I spent a ton of time getting REALLY good at some video games. Anybody else? Now, as an adult, being a baller at Spyro the Dragon, Crash Bandicoot, Skyrim, Call of Duty, and Minecraft hasn’t added a ton of value to my life in the long term haha.

I couldn’t put my KD ratio on my resume. My college applications didn’t care about how quickly I beat the Ender Dragon, or what I built in my Minecraft world. My wife Cassidy definitely is not impressed when I’ve spent a ton of time on the PlayStation instead of cleaning the house. I really enjoy playing video games, the problem is, once I power down the game console, I don’t take any of my achievements with me. I made a lot of progress, did some cool things, had a ton of fun… but it didn’t matter in the “real” world.

TENSION

Tension Statement. Video games aren’t necessarily bad, but for me they became a WASTE OF TIME, because they haven’t contributed to the things that God wants for my life. God has called me to be a pastor, not a Twitch streamer. He’s called me to be a husband and father, not a YouTuber. Video games were a waste of time for me, because they didn’t serve any of those things, and I often look back and wonder: how much better of a husband, father, pastor, teacher, follower of Jesus would I be if I had invested my hundreds, maybe thousands of hours of video games into one of those things?

In fact, here’s what I realized: There are few things more painful than looking back and realizing we wasted our life.

It’s painful to quit a sport, because we realize how much time and energy, LIFE we put into something that didn’t pan out in the end.

It’s painful to end a relationship, because we realize we spent a ton of time, energy, sometimes money— LIFE— on a person that we’re not going to be with forever.

It’s painful to grow up and realize that other people excelled where we didn’t because we wasted our time on distractions while they invested their time in the thing we value.

Tension Question. Now tonight is not a TED talk. We’re not going to talk about how to be the best football player you can be, or how to maximize your potential. What we’re going to hopefully talk about tonight is how to avoid getting to the end of our lives and realizing we wasted it. So that’s the question we’re going to answer: How can you avoid wasting your life?

TRUTH

The Sermon on the Mount, which we’ve been in this whole semester, is about having a right relationship with God that results in a right relationship with others and with the things of this world. Jesus is concerned first with what we’re aiming our life at, what we think will lead to the best life possible, and second with what we do, what habits and practices make up our life as we aim for the best life possible. And this next passage kind of sums that up for us:

19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.

20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matthew 6:19–21 NIV)

Part of Jesus’ message is that the things we accumulate and care so much about on earth will not last for eternity. They’re not good investments of our care, our energy, our attention, and our work. And most importantly, they’re definitely not good investments of our heart. If we spend our life chasing these things, we’ll end up wasting it. There’s a quote by a famous missionary and martyr names Jim Elliot that captures this perfectly:

He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. -Jim Elliot (Christian missionary and martyr).

That is true, and sounds really nice, and if you’re like me your first objection would be, well can’t I just have both? I’ll work as hard as I can in the things that I care about, I’ll go to church on Wednesdays and Sundays, I’ll be a good person, and I’ll live a good life. It’s one of the reasons I love Jesus’ teachings so much, He answers a lot of my questions haha. Check out what He says next:

24 “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. (Matthew 6:24 NIV)

In other words, both of those things can’t take number one spot in your life. And what we tend to think we can do is say, well football is just my number one during the Fall, but during the Spring it’s God. Or school is my number one Monday–Friday, but God is number one on Sundays. God can have my mornings, my Wednesday night, and my Sunday morning, but the rest of it goes to my friends and every other priority of my life.

That doesn’t work. This Scripture says that if you make something number one in your life, everything else becomes less important, and serves the thing you’ve placed as highest priority. So if you’re taking notes I want you to write this down it’s our main idea for tonight and I think it’s the answer to “how to make sure you’re not wasting your life.” It seems simple, but it’s profound, and I’ll explain in a second. How do you avoid wasting your life?

Aim to spend 100% of your life fulfilling God’s plans for you.

Now I’m not saying that making money can’t be God’s plan for your life. I know a lot of wealthy people that love Jesus and live really obedient lives. I’m not saying that God doesn’t want you to be a great athlete, or date anybody, or do anything other than pray, read your Bible, and come to church. That would probably make you weird haha. What I am saying is that if you chase ANYTHING in ANY WAY that IS NOT in God’s plan for you, it will be a waste of your life. Let me illustrate this for us:

ILLUSTRATION. [Communicator Note: Have an archery target that’s big enough for the audience to see. On the target, tape sheets of paper or some other visual that labels the rings of the bullseye. God should be at the center, put the other highest priorities and callings of your life on the surrounding rings.

Production Note: Having an editable archery target slide to insert labels on the rings would be a helpful low-budget way to illustrate for those that don’t want to mess around with an actual target.]

Target. This is an archery target, and you know the drill, the closer you get to the bullseye, the more points you get when you hit the target. You’ll also notice there are a few rings here not just one. If you think about your life like it’s an archery target, the different rings represent God’s will for your life.

Now my target will look different than your target. In the center ring God has called me to be His son, to be a follower of Jesus. If I’m aimed at that, I will never waste my life, I will be doing all the things that God has for me. The next ring I’ve got husband and father. Those are God’s calling for me to be a great husband to Cassidy, and a great dad to our baby. That can’t be the bullseye of my life, but it’s on my target and is the number one priority in how I invest my time and energy. The next ring is my calling to be a pastor. It’s not the center of my life, but it is an expression of my obedience to what God has called me to do. Every outer ring is an expression of my bullseye calling to love and follow Jesus.

Now, aiming at and hitting any of those things are a good investment for me, because they are the things God has called me to be and do. But what if I decided I was going to start aiming at being a video game streamer? Or what if I decided I was going to start aiming at being incredibly wealthy and comfortable? All of a sudden I have to take my aim off the target God has put in front of me. Even if I hit it and those things happen for me, I would have aimed away from God’s plan for my life. OR, if I decided that anything, even if it’s on my target, should take the bullseye instead of my relationship to God, it will ultimately guide me off course, and I’ll end up wasting my life on things that don’t satisfy.

Point. Here’s the point: The thing that you aim at instead of Jesus will be the thing that wastes your life. If you pursue and try to serve something other than Jesus, putting it at the center of your life, that thing or person you love will be the very thing that ruins your life.

If achieving in sports, academics, the arts, science, is your highest aim, you might just hit it, and it will be the thing you look back on and grieve, because you’ll have wasted your life achieving something that doesn’t last or satisfy.

If being loved and loving any person is your highest aim, you might have a good relationship, but it will be the thing you look back on and grieve when you meet Jesus, because their love is a shadow compared to his.

If being rich is your highest aim, you might make a lot of money, but you’ll look back and grieve because it didn’t make you happy like you thought it would.

God would love you to enjoy the good gift of your sport, music, theater, relationship, academic achievement, service in church, approval by others, but if it’s the center of your aim, it will ruin your life. AND IF YOU REALLY LOVE ANY OF THOSE THINGS, THE BEST THING YOU COULD DO IS LOVE JESUS MORE.

There’s one pretty foolproof way to know that you’re seeking God’s kingdom first, or if you’re overly concerned with the things of this world. There’s one word that every pursuit of this life will tell you. Whether it’s money, followers, successes, wins, subscribers, class rank, praise, awards, ALL of the things of this world will demand one thing of you. You know what it is? MORE.

Proverbs 27:20 says 20 Death and Destruction are never satisfied, and neither are human eyes. The reason Jesus came to earth is to rescue us from ourselves, from our attempt to replace God with the things He created. When we think the good life is going to come to us when we finally achieve success, when we finally hit that number in the bank account, when I finally get that girl, when that guy finally notices me, when I finally get that scholarship letter, when I’m finally allowed to just do what I want without my parents getting on to me, you know what will be whispered in your soul? “MORE. It’s not enough.” Our senior pastor Jason Berry was speaking to a room of seniors at summer camp, and he said something PROFOUND. He said,

You can never get enough of something that ALMOST satisfies. -Jason Berry

God doesn’t say any of these things because He wants you to be miserable, poor, unsuccessful, and unpopular. He just doesn’t want you to believe the lie that ANY of those things are capable of giving you a satisfying life without Him. In fact, ALL those things are capable of giving you on their own is worry. That’s why Jesus makes a turn from where our treasure is, to what we’re worried about.

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

It seems like Jesus is equating our anxiety and worry with aiming at things that He hasn’t put on our target, or putting things in the center instead of our relationship with Him.

33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. (Matthew 6:25–27, 33–34)

APPLICATION

So, what can you do today to make sure you’re not wasting your life, and dedicating 100% of your time to fulfilling God’s plans for you? Something you can do tonight is Lay down unworthy aims. Some of you know you’ve got things on the target of your life that aren’t things God is calling you to or allowing of you. It could be an app, a game, the amount of screen time, or it could be as big as a sport you play, a relationship, a life goal or desire. Anything that you aim at other than Jesus will end up wasting your life, and the best thing you could do is move that thing out of the bullseye of your life, or take it off your target altogether.

The problem is, unworthy aims have a way of sneaking back onto our targets, don’t they? So how do we maintain consistency as we follow Jesus? The answer is boring, but we need to Pick up heavenly habits. The reason we’re doing our weekly bible reading plan together is because it is a heavenly habit that keeps God at the center of the bullseye. If you’re not on that every week, scan the barcode that’s coming up behind me, or talk to your group leader tonight. Hopefully you’ve been practicing prayer like we talked about last week. Those habits are the “boring” things that won’t change much in a day, but will change EVERYTHING in a year.

Starting Line. Tomorrow could be the first day in the dedicated fight against your worries. It could be the first day in your fight against half-hearted empty faith towards a wholehearted, life-changing commitment to God. But big things always start small, and the question is, will you build the small habits and lay down the unworthy aims to seek the kingdom of God in your life? Tomorrow start another week of trying and failing, or it could fresh start for you, and I’d love for you to discuss what those commitments could look like together in groups.

Let’s Pray.