Live for another age
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19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 “But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; 21 for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. 22 “The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, 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 that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
Now notice Jesus’s word here.
Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth… but lay up treasures in heaven.
Notice the context here is this… people often choice between activities that lead to greater reward in the present and those that store up greater future reward in heaven.
Look at Mark 8:34-38
34 And He summoned the crowd with His disciples, and said to them, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. 35 “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. 36 “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? 37 “For what will a man give in exchange for his soul? 38 “For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”
Notice in mark the consequences of making the wrong choice.
Jesus says the Son of Man will be ashamed when He come in the glory of His father.
Notice Jesus is pointing to and talking about living for another age and another place.
To focus and live for Heaven.
To invest in heaven. To put our stock in heaven.
This text is not about money but I will say. Heaven stocks are never down.
Put trust in wall street and the dow johns.
Nor and horses and chariot. Heaven rate and stock are all ways up.
Look at your neighbor and say invest in heaven.
James Packer who in 1986 wrote Your father loves you says this about heaven.
“We know very little about heaven, but I once heard a theologian describe it as "an unknown region with a well-know inhabitant," and there is not a better way to think of it than that.”
Richard Baxter expresses the thought in these lines:
“My knowledge of that life is small, The eye of faith is dim, But it's enough that Christ knows all, And I shall be with him.”
To those who have learned to love and trust Jesus, the prospect of meeting him face to face and being with him forever is the hope that keeps us going, no matter what life may throw at us.
Thinking about Heaven is amazing. Our mind loses its focus.
Tries to grab hold of what this place would be like and probably if we walked around the room we would have quite a few different description of what heaven looks like and what is in it.
That’s why we love to read books about Heaven.
And honestly some book I don’t care for because reading some of their description leave me a little disappointed.
Is that it? I was thinking it would have… and…
Do you know why people are so fascinated with books and stories about heaven
Because all of us have a longing to go home.
We have a deep desire to know what our home is like and to be there.
Wondering what it is like. What will we do there. What will be eat.
What will we look like.
How Old will we be?
What will we be doing for a whole eternity.
I wanna know!!!
Why do you wanna know. Well turn with me to Philippians 3:18-20
18 For many walk, of whom I often told you, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, 19 whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things. 20 For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ;
notice this our mind is not set on worldly things.
But because we are citizen of heaven.
More that you are an American you are a citizen of heaven first.
Anonymous writer, about an American tourist's visit to the 19th century Polish rabbi, Hofetz Chaim:
Astonished to see that the rabbi's home was only a simple room filled with books, plus a table and a bench, the tourist asked,
"Rabbi, where is your furniture?"
"Where is yours?" replied the rabbi.
"Mine?" asked the puzzled American. "But I'm a visitor here. I'm only passing through."
"So am I," said Hofetz Chaim.
We need to make in our mind that our desire is not sow and pour our life into what matter and what will last.
To think about eternity, to build the kingdom of God, preparing the way for a God who is returning.
Not to get my television or my car. But to get me. And when he does he said he will make all things new.
Heavenly TV’s, Heavenly Cars, and heavenly Mansions.
1 “Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. 2 “In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. 3 “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also. 4 “And you know the way where I am going.”
What Jesus is preparing for me and I must prepare myself to enter into my inheritance
Hebrews in the faith hall of fame says about Abraham in chapter 11
8 By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going. 9 By faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise; 10 for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.
By faith what I do in this earth, where I do is for the promise that Jesus through his death on the cross his being death for 3 days going to hell for me. Resurrecting on the 3rd and ascending to his. To intercede and prepare a place for me..
And jesus says those who have this revelation and life perspective. Bring a body full of light.
With no darkness,
Not serving 2 masters but clinging to God. If I don’t have money today. I decide to make God my master
Which brings up back to verse 19
19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.
What we do for heaven can not rust or decay or be stolen away..
Now your money can. Your house can, your car can.
