Being the Church - Following & Practising the Way of Jesus.

Becoming like Jesus in our attitude to Stuff!

Matthew 6:19-34.

The Kingdom of Heaven is your Treasure so Invest in the right things in life.

“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 moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! No one can serve two masters. 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 both God and Money.” (Matthew 6:19-24).

Jesus draws a contrast between earthly and heavenly reward, one whch manifests itself in the life of the disciple in their attitude to money; prayer and food.

Those who are seeking first the Kingdom of God are not hording money but are willing to give it away; they are not self-dependent but Father God dependent as they pray and they are not spending all their time worrying about what they shall eat drink and wear but asking God for their daily bread and willing to go without it, in fasting when they want to seek God in a deeper and more meaningful way.

So Jesus contrasts earthly and heavenly treasure:

“treasures on earth” are temporary; they deteriorate or are stolen and if you are not careful, you will spend all your time looking at them and thinking about them and they will consume your mind and your desires, filling your mind with “darkness” until they actually control you and you will love and serve and be mastered by money.

When Jesus speaks of money here he uses the Aramaic word, “māmōnā’, which means essentially ‘possessions’ and although it if often taken as being a negative even evil thing, of possessions wrongly acquired, (see Luke 16:9, 11) it is not always used negatively in the OT, so Proverbs 3:9, says ‘Honour God with your mammon’ and Deuteronomy 6:5, says, “You shall love Yahweh your God with … all your mammon’. Hence the rival loyalty then is not that of illegally acquired wealth verses the Kingdom of Heaven, but material possessions however legitimate, which can be used to serve God, but can also claim our allegiance. Mammon thus here represents the principle of materialism, and this is in direct conflict with loyalty to God.

“treasures in Heaven” are eternal and do not deteriorate. When you spend yout yime looking at these and thinking about them they will fill your mind with light and you will love and serve and be mastered by God.

“Treasures in heaven are ‘stored up’ by obedience to God in all areas of life; they are the reward of the disciple who puts God first. Treasures on earth give no permanent security or satisfaction.” (Tasker).

2. Seek first the the Kingdom of Heaven and stop Worrying about stuff of life!

“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 important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 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? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” (Matthew 6:25-34).

The connection here between being mastered by material possessins and worrying about them is logical.

Whenever we serve anything we are anxious to please what we serve.

Likewise when we choose not to serve somethign there is inevitably a cost or sacrifice to pay

If the disciple of Jesus chooses not to serve money he or she will have to pay the price for this choice and it could in extreme circumstances rob us of the basic necessities of life. Won’t that then lead to worrying about the things in life that we ned to survive?

So Jesus says: “do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear.” The Greek word for ‘worry” is “anxiety’. Merimnaō (‘to be anxious’) referring essentially to a state of mind which is “overconcerned about’” stuff!

Worry leads to an attitude of mind which conflicts with faith - Matthew 8:26; 14:31; 16:8; 17:20 - and leads us to the mistaken notion that the material stuff of life is the most important stuff of life but Jesus said, don;t worry about stuff because, “Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? “

That’s a massive assertion - your life is more important than just having the material stuff needed to survive! The materialist would listen increduously to such an assertion and denounce it is not only unrealistic but wreckless and dangerous. However Jesus points us in another direction, Those who “seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” because “your heavenly Father knows that you need them. “ and Jesus says in efect, the same God who feeds “the birds of the air” and “clothes the grass of the field” will take care of you because you “are much more valuable than they” are!

So Jesus said: ”seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

APPLICATION:

This is revolutionary and oh I am such a child when it comes to learning this. THis is so hard for us as we live in the material West. It deeply challenges my attitude to stuff!

“It is not so much the disciple’s wealth that Jesus is concerned with as his loyalty...materialism is in direct conflict with loyalty to God. And the danger of amassing possessions is that the treasure will command the disciple’s loyalty, that material affluence will breed materialism.” (Tasker).

Faith for Jesus, is a very practical reliance on the care and power of our Heavenly Father (cf. Matt 8:8–10; 9:2, 21–22, 28–29; etc.). Anxiety is therefore its opposite, and is to be resisted and struggled with.

To forbid ‘anxiety’ does not rule out a responsible concern and provision for one’s own and others’ material needs, nor does Jesus here forbid us to work (see on v. 26). If Jesus’ illustration of birds and flowers, etc were pressed too literally, it might suggest that the disciple has no need to grow and harvest food. But the point is that God sees that even the birds are fed, and a disciple is more valuable to him than a bird.

Anxiety achieves nothing and cannot add anything to our life-span (Grk: Hēlikia normally means ‘age’, ‘life-span’. but can mean “height as in Luke 19:3).

What is prohibited is worry, not work. Even the birds have to spend a lot of energy in hunting or searching for their food, but the point is that it is there to be found. And it is provided by your heavenly Father; a true understanding of that phrase is the ultimate antidote to anxiety.

So Jesus concern, as in the preceding verses, is with priorities, and the essential message of this passage is ‘First things first’, which means in fact ‘God first’. Given that prior emphasis, concern for material needs will not be able to usurp the first place which it too often occupies in a disciple’s interests.

And this challenges how I live and walk in the Christian life - “The eye is the lamp of the body.” - which may mean, the eye let s light into the body and influences the thought processes of the mind or else the eye is the outlet which enables me to walk without stumbling. Either way, having an eye that sees and directs a mind that is full of God’s light and teaching, is absolutely essential to living God’s way inthe world!

Having such an outlook in life gives us a “single” eye - Grk: ‘haplous” is better translated “sound” ‘complete’ or ‘perfect’, and it speaks of an ‘undivided’ loyalty. “So the ‘single eye’ is primarily a metaphor for a life totally devoted to the service of God.”(Tasker).

And this leads to generousity, a concept used by Paul in Rom. 12:8; 2 Cor. 8:2; 9:11, 13 and James in Jas 1:5 - where the hapolutes is generous because he is detached from material concern in contrast to thse pagas whose “eyes are bad” who horde rather than give generously.

“The result of such a sound eye is a well-illuminated body. The body here represents the whole person, and if the idea of the lamp was of that which enables the body to find its way, the thought is of a purposeful life, directed towards its true goal. The alternative is a life in the dark, like a blind man, because the ‘evil eye’ of selfish materialism gives no light to show the way.” (Tasker).

Faith is, for Jesus a very practical reliance on the care and power of the Father:

And this should impact our prayer life; our giving and our spiritual disciplines. God has enough to proide for our everyday needs and we don’t have to aggressively bther him to get what we need. He is always willing to give us our “daily bread’. We are called to trust Him to do so!

We are to “seek”, a present imperative, implying a continuing obligation to put God’s Kingdom and His interests first in our lives.

Submit to God’s sovereignty here and now, be obedient to His will and look forward to, and work for, the ultimate establishment of His kingdom and His righteousness.

What this verse demands is, therefore, a commitment to find and to do the will of God, to ally oneself totally with his purpose.

Moreover, we are assured that if we thus put God first, our material needs will be provided.

“This positive climax makes it clear that vv. 25ff. are not prescribing an irresponsible, happy-go-lucky optimism, or a fatalistic acceptance of the status quo, nor are they decrying the body and its concerns as sordid and unworthy of our attention. They call the disciple to an undistracted pursuit of his true goal, to which lesser (though legitimate) concerns must give way; and they assure him that if he will put first things first, God will take care of the rest.” (Tasker)