Money Matters III: Matthew 6:19-24

Text:

““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. “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! “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.” (Matthew 6:19–24).

Introduction:

Why we are in this series: Not so much about money as it is about Jesus’ warnings that money and wealth can so easily enslave us and lead us to hell.

Money seems like power. Power to get what we want or power to control or manipulate others.

Money seems like status. With it we get respect, invited into inner circles, and can purchase rare and exclusive novelties.

Money seems like control. You can buy your way out of trouble. You can take it easy and rest, like the parable of the fool and the barns.

But Jesus said that a rich man going to heaven is as impossible as a camel going through the eye of a needle. Or again, that a rich man is like seed that was planted and then chocked to death by the cares of the world.

The richer you are the less you give —

Charitable Giving For Churches

Tithers make up only 10-25 percent of a normal congregation.

Only 5% tithe, and 80% of Americans only give 2% of their income.

Christians are giving at 2.5% of income; during the Great Depression it was 3.3%.

Only 3-5% of Americans who give to their local church do so through regular tithing.

For families making $75k+, 1% of them gave at least 10% in tithing.

The average giving by adults who attend US Protestant churches is about $17 a week.

37% of regular church attendees and Evangelicals don’t give money to church.

[From Forbes Magazine Leading Up To The 2020 Presidential Election]

“The 2020 presidential candidates live comfortably. They’re nearly all millionaires. Two are even billionaires. Yet they’re not exactly the most philanthropic bunch.

Nearly every candidate who has released tax returns has given away less than 5% of their income, by our count, often lagging average Americans in the same tax brackets. In dollar terms, their total known giving seems impressive ($198 million)—until you consider that 98% of that comes from billionaire Tom Steyer, who has given $193 million to three of his own foundations, according to the latest filings.”

https://www.forbes.com/sites/chasewithorn/2019/08/14/how-charitable-are-the-2020-presidential-candidates/?sh=5ef5a15225ee

https://fortune.com/2019/04/26/2020-democratic-candidates-charity/

Beto O’Rourke — .7% of 3.4 million

Elizabeth Warren — 4% of 10 million

Bernie Sanders— 3.4 %

Joe Biden— 1.8%

Kamala Harris — 1.3%

Don’t get prideful in hearing statistics like this, for many churchgoers we use the tithe as a way to rob God. We buy him off of our backs so that we can feel secure, entitled, and free to do whatever we please with the rest.

Exposition:

Matthew 6:19–21 (ESV) — 19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

1) 19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal,

Not that we “should” not, as if it is just a wise suggestion, but that we “must not” lay up our treasures here on earth.

Moth and rust destroy it. It is all perishable, decayable, and futile. They are cheap trinkets, but oh how we love them!

Notice that he doesn’t say ‘money’—He says treasures. What are treasures? Anything that we prize, love, seek to protect, dream about, and ultimately worship. It can be anything. Money, Cars, Job, Status, Toys

[Maybe go into your house today and look through some of your storage bins. Those things lying in there, was there a time when you were excited to get them? Kids, what has happened to the excitement of Christmas gifts from two years ago, or last year? Our affections run from treasure to treasure, comfort to comfort, possession to possession.

Jeremiah 2:13 (ESV) — 13 for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.

James 4:2–5 (ESV) — 2 You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. 4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5 Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”?

James goes so far to say that we often pray that God would grant us access to our lusts.

James 5:1–6 (ESV) — 1 Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. 2 Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. 3 Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days. 4 Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. 5 You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. 6 You have condemned and murdered the righteous person. He does not resist you.

Just before this text Jesus was speaking about the hypocrites who like to pray and practice their religion before others in order to be seen. He says that they are missing the point but are receiving their reward in the form of their own pride and man’s temporary praise. In the same way, the person who stores up treasures here on earth will likely only have those trinkets as a reward. A shallow, near-sighted, and stupid life.

For those in Christ, challenges in this life are the worst it will ever be for them. For those outside of Christ, this fleeting life is the best it will ever be.

So do not lay up your treasures here on earth.

Treasure In Heaven

2) 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

That is the key to understanding this text. Where are treasures are is where our hearts will be.

So that means that placing our treasures in heaven means placing our hearts there. We must love God. We must love God’s kingdom. We must pray, like Jesus taught earlier in this chapter - it’s all connected - that God’s kingdom would come and his will would be done here. We are eternal souls that will live with God forever. We must act like the Kingdom is coming now. We must lay up our treasures with God. That’s not a foolish life at all. Those treasures are real, and big, and life-changing, and never perish. They yield and increase investment of joy and worship and satisfaction as they blossom in glory, unlike our earthly treasures which disappoint, rust away, become boring, and are ultimately taken from us.

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." — Jim Elliot

Isaiah 55:1–3 (ESV) — 1 “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. 2 Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. 3 Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live; and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David.

Kingdom Perspective

Matthew 6:22–23 (ESV) — 22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, 23 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!

There is a connection here between eye and heart. The eyes are the windows for the world and beliefs that we take inside of us. They either fixate on things that bring in light and truth, or they fixate on things that conceal truth, and therefore make it dark inside.

How do you combat this soul-stealing distraction? How do you fight this silent killer? You guard your eyes and your heart. You meditate and fixate on what it right, good, and true. You come up out of the water of busyness and indulgence and entertainment and want and you take in the fresh air of God’s kingdom.

If you look at this world without a heavenly perspective you will miss the real glory of this world and your time will be of little use other than accumulating and enjoying very temporary pleasures. But if you look to God’s kingdom and have your heart fixed there, then this world is baptized into a much greater enjoyment. Even poverty or suffering becomes glorious.

“Aim at Heaven and you will get Earth 'thrown in': aim at Earth and you will get neither.” — C.S. Lewis

Philippians 4:8–9 (ESV) — 8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. 9 What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.

Isaiah 5:20 (ESV) — 20 Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!

Philippians 3:13–21 (ESV) — 13 Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. 15 Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. 16 Only let us hold true to what we have attained. 17 Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. 18 For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. 19 Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. 20 But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.

Two Masters

Matthew 6:24 (ESV) — 24 “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.

Who do you love and who do you despise? Whose commands do you obey joyfully? When God gives a command do we grumble, considering how much it could cost us? Do we buy him off with tithes of mint and cummin and attendance or money, or is He our Lord? Does His kingdom come? Is it His will that we enjoy?

Again, it’s not that we should not serve God and money, but that we cannot. It is impossible.

God’s generosity: John 3:16, Philippians 2

Confession of Sin

Jeremiah 2:13 (ESV) — 13 for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.

Assurance of Pardon

1 Peter 1:14–21 (ESV) — 14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, 15 but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16 since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” 17 And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, 18 knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. 20 He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you 21 who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

Communion