Laying Up Treasures in the Kingdom

Kingdom Living June 1, 2025 Matthew 6:19-24 Notes


Many have discovered the emptiness in the pursuit of things that compete with the culture that God intends for His people in the Kingdom. God did not create us for the rat race. He created us to pursue Him and nothing can substitute the peace, joy and purpose we find in that pursuit.

In today’s text we will see our savior Jesus offering a better pursuit in the Kingdom of God. In Matthew 6, Jesus continued the Sermon on the Mount by teaching that those whose heart is on God, His Kingdom citizens, will lay up treasures in heaven.

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Transcript

Good morning, church. Glad to see you here today. My name is Pastor Stephen Combs, and I'm filling in while Pastor Gary is taking a little time off. And it's my pleasure to be here with you today. And just as a reminder, always, we have two venues going on simultaneously right now.

We have the worship center right here. We have the gathering place next door. And I just was popping my head in worship with them a little bit. On the count of three, gathering place. Why don't y' all make some noises if you can hear you in here?

One, two, three. Well, y' all. Not. Not y' all. Y' all weren't the gathering place.

This is the worship center. Gathering place is over there. Gathering place. They yelled over you. I'm sorry.

Let's try this again. 1, 2, 3. Did you hear them? I love that. Anyway, glad to have everyone here, and we're all one church.

And those who are watching online, glad to have you here. Can you yell on the count of three live streams, see if we can hear you? No, never mind. Anyway, so we're continuing our series today. This is called Kingdom Living.

And this has been such a powerful series going through the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, chapters five through seven, which is considered the greatest sermon ever preached by the greatest preacher who ever lived. And so last Sunday, today and next Sunday, they're actually all kind of connected because all three of these are talking about having priorities that are kingdom priorities. And last Sunday, Mike taught us about how to. We learned how to pray prayers that are kingdom prayers that prioritize God's kingdom first. And then next Sunday, we're going to see that if we seek God first and we seek his will above all else, that he will provide for us here today.

We will see that there is eternal meaning in the goals that we have set for ourselves at work, goals that we've set for ourselves in relationships, our time and our stuff. You see, in our culture, which is we're going to specifically talking to the American culture, there are many things that compete with the culture that God intends for us, his people in the kingdom. And there's a battle that's going on within you for your allegiance to what one of these cultures, whether it be the culture of the kingdom or the culture of America. So today we're going to be discussing the battle between two specific masters, and that is God and money. The pursuit of money is one of the greatest adversaries to the kingship of God in our lives.

But as we're going to see this morning, the Word money, which in the Greek is the word mammon, it's transliterated the word mammon. And so if you grew up like reading King James Version Bible here in King James Version, you know that when you read the passage we're going to be reading today, the word mammon is the one that you're most familiar with. And in this time, it would have to the audience that heard it, the word mammon would have been to them a personification of money and riches that actually kind of. It's like a mammon is like a false deity against God. And so mammon represents all the things that direct our attention to, away from God and his kingdom planned for us.

So what are things that do that? Wealth will do it, security, success, comfort, even our dreams. Are those things inherently bad? No, but they can. When you pursue those things above the kingdom of God, it can become a form of mammon, an idol in our lives.

And so we have these two words that I think, you know, is kind of like it's ingrained into our culture is the desire to live the American dream. And that's to have a good paying job, have a spouse, have a house, have some kids, have some pets, some transportation. Man, if you can really live the dream, you'll have a beach house or a mountain house. And it just keeps on going. And the idea is climb higher up the corporate ladder.

Become the greatest that you possibly can for your own glory. Consume constantly. You deserve it. And the truth is though, mammon, which you could call that, it's called the American Dream, we could just as easily call it the Mammon Dream because it says you never have enough, it never actually lets you feel content. And it just always is whispering in your ear just a little bit more.

If you could just get that next thing. And that's the Mammon Dream. But some of us have already discovered that there's an emptiness in that pursuit. And we found that the treasures that come with the American Dream, the Mammon dream, not only do they not satisfy, but they don't last forever. It's been a painful part of my life to see some loved ones who seemingly like, were living the American Dream, like they had all the stuff I was just talking about.

And then to end this life, grow old to the point where they need to be put in a nursing home. And so all the stuff that they've been accumulating and in this world suddenly gets dispersed to family members and they move into a single hospital room with some knickknacks from their life. And then that's all they now have. It's been taken away even in this life. And some of y' all are nodding your heads because you've experienced that.

And it's really hard to see that, because, you know, the stuff can become ingrained in who we are. It can become ingrained in who you thought they were. And then when you see somebody go through that, it really challenges the idea of, like, what really matters. When you see that happen to someone, you're like, that stuff didn't really turn out to matter all that much because all they really need to survive is a bed and some food and a shelter. But all that stuff, what good did it do them in the end?

And the truth is, time never stops, right? The aging process never ends. People, even the ones that you love the most, come and go because time always wins. So at face value, it seems like that there's nothing worth valuing. Seems like there's nothing worth placing our treasure in that has a lasting value or a permanent value.

And so if we stopped right here, it'd be the biggest bummer sermon you've ever heard in your life. But God, he offers us eternal treasures, things that are worth valuing, that have everlasting value. He didn't create us to join the rat race. He created us to pursue Him. And there's nothing that can substitute the peace and the joy and the purpose that we can find in that pursuit.

So in today's text, we're going to see our Savior, Jesus, offering to each one of us a better pursuit, a better dream, a greater treasure, and a permanent treasure in the kingdom of God. So turn to someone near you right now and say, I'm done with the rat race. Go ahead and do it. Say, I'm done with the rat race.

When we leave here today, we're going to leave with a knowledge and a readiness to pursue treasures that really matter, treasures that last forever. Are you ready for this? All right, that one person's ready. The rest of y' all, you'll catch on. You'll catch on.

In Matthew 6, Jesus continued the sermon on the Mount by teaching that those whose heart is on God, that these are, if you're his kingdom citizens, that you will lay up permanent treasures in heaven. And we, too, can put away permanent treasures in heaven as God's kingdom citizens. So how do we invest our treasures in heaven? I'm wondering as much as you are right now. Well, the scripture is going to give us three ways to lay up treasures in heaven.

Let's stand to our feet as we Read. Right now, we're going to be turning to the Book of Matthew, chapter six. And if you were, like, you know, professional at Bible Drill, growing up, this is your chance to get that Bible out and flip it out to Matthew, chapter six. The rest of us joining on. It's on the screens in the Bible app.

Lots of places we're looking at Matthew, chapter 6, verse 19. 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 that 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.

Let's read this last sentence together. You cannot serve God and money. And may God bless the reading of his Word. Amen. You can have a seat.

So this is going to give us three ways that we can lay up treasures as God's kingdom citizens, by, first of all, realigning our hearts on heavenly things. Realigning our hearts on heavenly things. And so a practice that, if you're new to us this morning at Eastgate, we take very seriously the word of God. And every single word has value. And so we like to pull out some words that maybe could be misunderstood or maybe have more deeper meaning than just surface value.

And so that's what we like to take a chance here to do. So as we look at verse 19, it says, do not lay up. So right there off the bat, like, not necessarily two words that I would often use, but it means to gather, to store up, to accumulate in reserve. And then he says, do not store up. Lay up for yourselves treasures.

Now, the word treasure here is in Greek, the word thesaurus, which is where we get the word thesaurus. And I found that kind of fascinating as we were studying this week. But it's a place where good and precious things are collected and laid up. So this is fascinating because it doesn't. He's not actually specifically saying that the treasure is the precious thing.

It's saying that the treasure is the place where the precious things go. So Jesus is saying, do not store up, store houses. I find that fascinating because it does actually give us the symbol of what we can be so guilty of. Just drive through Wilson right now. How many storage centers are there in Wilson?

Because people have run out of room in their own house, so they need more storehouses. That's the prime example. Like a really, really great example. Do not store up more storehouses because moth and rust can destroy them. Look, we all.

If you just take a second and just observe what the world is doing. The earth wants to reclaim the land that we've taken. Just go to the beach anytime, build sandcastle, and see if it makes it through the night. Fort Macon here in North Carolina. I remember when they were having to, like, I can't remember what the process is called, but they pull sand out of the ocean and bring it to the shore because the ocean was washing the shore away.

I've seen neighbors to have just glorious yards. And then whenever they move away, it doesn't take like a year for it to just go to weeds. Because the earth is constantly wanting to reclaim the impact that we've had. So moth and rust destroy it. We're thieves.

Break in and steal. We all know the saying, time is a thief. So, look, we talked about this earlier. You can hoard every single thing. You can guard it with your life, but at some point, all that you own is going to pass on to someone else.

And they're not going to value it the same way that you do. In fact, a lot of the stuff that you pass on, they're probably going to think it's junk because they don't know what it is. And so in this world, moth and rust destroy, thieves, break in and steal. And that in and of itself, Jesus is saying, don't do that, because I've got a better way. Lay up treasures in heaven.

Now, this is a word right here that I find can be somewhat misunderstood, because when we all think of the word heaven, we tend to think of a place that is in the future. And that when I store up treasures in heaven, it's like I'm doing, like, a spiritual retirement plan. And I don't get to touch that IRA or 401k or whatever, you know, I don't get to touch that for this lifetime, But I'm laying up treasures that one day will be a benefit to me. But Jesus tells us that the kingdom of God is near. And we see in scripture evidence that heaven is near.

It's just that it's in the spirit and we can't see it, but it is near. So when Jesus is saying, store up Treasures in heaven. He's talking about a storehouse that doesn't just have future benefit, it can have present benefit as well. So I genuinely, when I was reading this this week, was going, what are some heavenly rewards that I can try to build up treasure towards? I'd like to really know what those are.

So we did some study and here's four that readily come to mind. One is a reward is relationships. There's one relationship in Christ that is especially rewarding. There's a greater joy and passion and hope and life that comes with having intimacy with Christ. And that's a reward you can experience both now and forever.

A year ago, Pastor Gary took us through a series called Heaven and he unpacked some of the rewards, such as crowns. So there's these symbols in heaven, and crowns is one of them that represents honor and achievement. So when you store up treasures, it actually can be a symbol that sticks with you for eternity. Also responsibilities. We see in the Bible that one of the rewards that we receive in heaven is to have authority over some things.

And I've seen so many people begin to experience those rewards here on earth. I've seen people who never saw themselves as leaders, but to come to Christ and begin to follow him. And all of a sudden this leadership gifting comes out and this authority begins to be about their life, where they're experiencing the heavenly reward here and now as well. And the one that's most obvious to pretty much everybody is the heavenly reward of living forever. Have an eternity with him, that the impact of your faithfulness will never be lost or forgotten.

But let's not forget the greatest reward is Jesus. The greatest reward is Christ himself. And he says it in Genesis 15. He says, I am your very great reward. Paul got it right in Philippians 1.

He said, to live is Christ and to die is gain.

So Jesus reads on here. He says, so lay up treasures in heaven where neither moth nor destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal. So these are going to be permanent, eternal treasures. And then he finishes it with 21 saying, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. When he says heart, he's not just talking about the blood pumping organ that's in our chest.

The word heart denotes the center of all physical and spiritual life. This is where you're getting the vigor and passion that you have. And it's where you find like, what is the central purpose that drives you to do what you do, what gets you out of bed in the morning, that is pointing at your heart. And so Jesus is saying something very challenging to us here. He says, where your storehouse is, what is most precious to you, that's where your heart's at that is actually going to start affecting who you actually are at the center, at the core.

And we see there's a quote here by Daniel Akin, that a heart that values the treasures of earth more than the treasures of heaven is sinful. Here's what he says. One of the basic and fundamental truths of the Christian faith is that our heart, who we really are on the inside, should point to God. He created us and has redeemed us in Christ, purchasing us with the precious blood of his Son. To love anything or anyone or to treasure anyone or anything more than Jesus is spiritual adultery.

It is adultery of the heart. We're called the bride of Christ. And so when you love something or anything more than Christ, guess what? You're an adulterous bride. That's sin.

So seek. What do we do about this problem? Like, I'm pretty bummed out right now. Okay, here's what we're gonna do about it. Seek treasure that truly lasts, which is a kingdom treasure.

It's a heavenly treasure where Christ is. And in Matthew 13, he says, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field which a man found and then he covered up. And then his joy. In his joy, he goes and he sells all that he has and buys that field. This is just a field.

Fantastic picture here of what Jesus is trying to tell each one of us, and that's so hard for us to see sometimes, is that the treasure of heaven is so great that if you could somehow lay hands on it in this life, you would sell everything for it, because you would very quickly have your eyes open to see. Nothing else is worth it like that treasure. And so this is showing us how valuable the heavenly treasure is. And then in Luke, Jesus is going to hit us with a hard parable. Here in chapter 12, he says, the ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest.

So he thought to himself, what shall I do? I have no place to store my crops. And then he said, ah, this is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and I'll build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. And I'll say to myself, you have plenty of grain laid up for many years.

Take life easy, eat, drink, be merry. But God said to him, you fool. This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself? This is how it will be with whoever stores up things but is not rich toward God.

You see, one of the treasures that we're all born with is time. And it's not all the same amount. We don't all get the same amount of time. But time is considered one of the greatest treasures that we are given. And so knowing that our days are numbered, but we don't even know how many we have left to us, guess what?

They're fully known to God. He knows exactly how many days you have left. So how foolish would it be for us to spend all of our energy building bigger storehouses and investing in this earthly treasure when we don't even know if we're going to wake up in the morning? I mean, statistically, I can look at. Don't pop that picture up yet.

We're not there yet. You didn't see that just now.

She likes that illustration. It's coming. We don't even know if we have tomorrow coming. Like, statistically, we look at our. I'm, like, I'm healthy.

The chances are I'm waking up tomorrow. But you don't know for sure. You don't know what's happening when you leave this building today. And so how foolish that would be to put it all in that basket when your time is limited.

All right, we're gonna go to that illustration now. So as she's popping this up, I recognize that it's probably too soon to be talking about COVID I'm so exhausted by that, and as we all are. But here was something that came from it that I think is worth pointing out is that In March of 2020, everything came to a stop, and the rat race had to be paused for every single one of us. We had no choice for a couple of weeks there but to stay home and to. To just try to figure it out.

Now, what I had, this busy, chaotic life. So many things going on. I had so many things that I was looking forward to doing, and now they're just paused, and I don't know what's coming. It really challenged us to consider what really matters in this life. I remember, you know, my kids were in soccer at the time, and March is soccer.

That's like prime, like, rec soccer and baseball season. And all of a sudden, my Saturdays are empty now. And so it forced us all to kind of, if we were smart, we paused and analyzed what really mattered. And then as the doors began to open back up and as we begin to come back together. Oh, by the way, I did mean to mention this picture right here.

This is Me sitting in front of a zoom meeting with my small group, which I found at the time was. It was. I realized just how precious this human interaction is. I could do it, never do a zoom meeting for the rest of my life and be happy, because that's just not the thing.

So as the doors opened, we had an opportunity with a blank calendar to decide what gets to go back in it. So the question I have for us is how has your post Covid schedule affected your heart? Have you dropped some things that were actually worth keeping and maybe added some things that have done nothing but stress you out and weigh you down?

Realigning our hearts on heavenly things means us changing our pursuit from building earthly storehouses to building heavenly ones. And it means shifting how our time is spent. So if somebody were to look at your calendar right now or your budget, what would they sell that you value the most? If you lost everything tomorrow, like Job did in the Bible, if you lost it all, would Christ be enough for you? And I recognize there is a modern attack that parents deal with where sports and arts are demanding more and more of our time than they used to.

And they don't have any consideration for church anymore. It seems like sports take place on Sundays now. They take place. It used to be here in the south, especially Wednesday nights, like, was kind of a sacred night. Most people knew not to schedule sports activities.

Yeah, it's not true anymore. In fact, if you, if your kid, let's call, let's say they're a soccer player. If your kid's on the soccer team, the coach may have come to you at some point and said, hey, if they don't do travel ball, they're probably not going to have a starting position anymore because they're not going to be as good as the other kids or maybe your kids, you know, doing theater. But because you have these set days, you know that you're trying to go to church, you're trying to be in a community group, it's kept them from getting lead roles because they weren't going to be able to be at those practices. And so there's a really difficult decision that we as parents have to make is am I going to put the success of my child here on earth?

Which, let's say they're a professional athlete one day. How many years do they get to actually do that? Am I going to put that value above where their heart stands with God, which is going to affect them for eternity? And here's something even scary to consider. Have I accidentally put my treasure placed my treasure in my kid's success and let that be something that I value and shape my whole life and time and schedule around.

Well, here are some suggestions for how we can realign our hearts. And I'm going to start with the calendar thing. There's a well known experiment where if you have a jar that you're trying to fill with large rocks, medium rocks and small rocks, you don't start with the small ones because the small ones are going to fill up the bottom of it and then you're not going to have room to fit all the rest of it. But if you put the big rocks in first and then put the medium sized rocks, then it will all fit. And so maybe look at your schedule, maybe you need to do a Covid reset.

Now I'm not saying you should isolate because that's not a good idea, but maybe you need to look at it and say what are the big rocks that should be here that aren't? And I'll give you an example of some church is one. I was just talking to a pastor this week that said that growing up, the consistent attendance of church is probably the single thing that affected his life the most. Be consistent at church Community group is a big rock that I think we should all put in our lives serving and we're going to talk about that more. Is a big rock that belongs being in a discipleship, relationship with someone.

And then of course, like time with your spouse, time with your kids, you can decide like between you and the Lord. Pray about this. What are the big rocks that need to go there? Look at your schedule right now. As I was just saying those things, if any of those big rocks were missing, I wholeheartedly think you're missing something very important.

And then let the rest fit in. Reassess your spending. So if your budget is so packed that you can't be generous, then you need to reassess it and create some margin so that way you can give towards the Lord. Practice sacrificial generosity. So giving away that stretches your faith.

Giving away that you give God the first fruits and not just the leftovers. And then maybe, you know, we have like a bank ledger, create a heaven ledger. Track your spiritual investments, like your time in prayer, like keep track of that, your time. Giving, serving, discipling. Those are just some examples of how we can realign our heart.

And then point two, we can lay up treasures as God's kingdom citizens by refocusing our vision on Christ. Refocusing our vision on Christ. Now I have to be honest if you're just reading this passage in your private life, it probably feels like Jesus was talking about treasures and then just had like a add moment and then started talking about the eye and the lamp. And I'm like, what? What are you saying?

Well, check this out. When we were studying this this week, this is no add moment. This is a God moment. He's getting ready to drop something on us that's gonna shape the whole way we see this passage. He says, here the eye is the lamp of the body.

And so this word lamp here is meant to be like a candle that is placed on a candlestick. It's the vessel that. That carries light. It's not creating the light. My eye itself doesn't create light, but it carries light.

And it takes the light from there to inside to my body, okay? So it lets light in. It illuminates the world ahead. When I squint my eyes, it lets less light in. If somebody were to turn all the lights out in this room and it'd be complete darkness, my eyes would just, like, instinctively start looking for something to focus on because my eye wants light.

So it's the lamp of the body. And then he says, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be light. This word healthy in the Greek is the word haplos, which means a simple, single, to mean whole. And the King James Version, if you were reading that right now, it would say, if therefore thine eye be single. So singleness has to do with being sincere.

It has to do with being genuine, to being, like, single minded. And it is often translated in the New Testament as the word generous. What about that? If your eye is generous, then your whole body will be full of light. We see evidence in 2nd Corinthians 8.

Their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity, which is the word haplos. Second Corinthians 9, you will be enriched in every way to be generous, hapless, so healthy. So here Christ is saying, if your eye is generous, then your body will be full of light. So the health of our eye is measured in our generosity.

But look, it gets better. I'm already kind of mind blown, but it gets better. We were studying the Bible project this week, which is definitely worth checking out. It's a. It's a website you can go to, and it was really helpful.

It says in the Hebrew, Jesus was contrasting the good eye, which is the words tovayin, with the bad eye, which is ra' ayin. And so we see the words Tovayin in the old Testament, Proverbs 22 One who is generous, that word generous is tovayin good eye. So to be generous is to have a good eye because they will be blessed because he gives some of his food to the poor. Whereas rain bad eye is self centered. And we see that in Proverbs 23.

Do not eat the bread of the selfish. That word selfish is rad eye. Do not eat the bread of a selfish person or desire his delicacies. For as he thinks within himself, so he is. He says do you eat and drink but his heart is not with you.

So Jesus is communicating something so rich here. Kingdom citizens, if you are, if you are saved by Christ and you are a citizen of God, then you should have a good eye, a heart set on generosity and a single mindedness that is fully devoted to God and that's opposed to the world in our flesh which is a bad eye. It's self absorbed and it's double minded people who they pretend to care for others but they're self obsessed and they're publicly posturing as this generous person when their true agenda is about personal gain. I'm mindful of the challenge that we have. We have a wonderful praise and worship team here at Eastgate.

But every time I step up on this stage there is a challenge that I have to check in my spirit that you might hear me sing words or play an instrument and give me the glory whenever I'm here to say those words for his glory. But I have to in my spirit check that every single time I step up here that I'm not doing it for your clapping of hands, I'm doing it for him. And that way we would clap to him. But this is something that we have. That's what a bad eye.

A bad eye wants the glory for your talent. A good eye wants the glory for him. And so then he says in verse 23, if your eye is bad, which kind of has this idea of being like diseased or evil or wicked, then it will be, then your whole body will be full of darkness. Ephesians 4 says, Their minds are full of darkness. They wander far from the life God gives because they have closed their minds and they've hardened their hearts against them.

Charles Quarles, such a hard name to say. Who named this guy this? Charles Quarles says in the Sermon on the Mount book when greed forces out any trace of inner good and only evil remains, the inner person is indescribably evil. The greedy person's corruption is complete. No Room remains for love for God or pursuit of the kingdom and its righteousness.

So if you let greed do its work, the bad eye, it will make you indescribably evil.

So what do we do? How do we fix this problem? Like, I'm with you. I'm like, this is bad. How do I fix this?

I set my eyes on things above and I make the vision for my life be Christ and him alone. Here are two passages that encourages on how to do this. Second Corinthians as we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient. The things that are unseen are eternal.

Hey, what did we just talk about earlier? Heaven is in the unseen. So fix your eyes and can you see it? No. This is a posturing.

This is a focus. I'm going to focus on the things that I can't see. Hebrews 12 Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. For the joy set before him, he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of God. When you're going through some difficulty, remember what Jesus went through.

So put your focus on him.

And some of y' all were already thinking this. When I said the words good eye, you were already thinking about this because in baseball, if you're watching a baseball game or maybe you've been on a baseball team before, what are two words that you've often said in reference to a batter? Good eye. And why are we saying that? Well, oftentimes it's because he's standing there in the batting box and you got your strike zone and a ball flies and goes outside the strike zone and he just looks at it, goes by kind of with a smirk on his face like, I ain't hitting that.

Everybody's like, yeah, good eye, good eye. Because what this person is demonstrating is I can tell the difference between a good ball and a bad ball. I can see a 3 inch white ball flying 90 miles per hour at me because my focus is singularly on that ball and I can determine if it's in the strike zone or not because I have a good eye. Now what does a bad eye do in baseball? Well, I was a baseball player, I've experienced this myself.

That if your focus is on anything else but that ball, that's a bad eye. Because that thing's coming at you fast. So if your eyes are on the fence, you're going to miss it. If your focus is on what the people in the crowd are thinking of you, then you're probably going to mistake that ball and swing at something you shouldn't have swung at or let something good go by that you should have swung at. And even worse, a bad eye is not just unable to determine the good from the bad.

It wants to look at two things at the same time. It wants to look at the ball, but also look at the fence. And the eyes want to do this. Now, I don't. I'm looking at y' all.

I'm looking for some eyes that are pointing like this right now. Nobody has that. Thank God. We're not. We were not created with that ability for a reason.

It's almost like in our. In our. In the way he created this. He's trying to teach us something here. You can only look at one thing at a time.

Da Carson says the good eye is the one fixed on God, unwavering in its gaze, constant in its fixation. The individual with a single eye towards kingdom values is the person that's characterized by maximum understanding of a divinely revealed truth and by unabashedly pure behavior. The person's eye is on the prize of one treasure, one kingdom, one master. And they will not be distracted by anything this world has to offer man. Good word there, Carson.

So how do we focus? How do we refocus our vision on Christ? We remove things that distract us from following Jesus. Like, when you're thinking about your life, how much of your mental bandwidth is spent on things that pull you towards Christ versus the things that pull you away from Him? Is your eye trying to look at two things?

Like, you're trying to follow the Lord, but you're also thinking about your own success and your own treasure here on Earth. You're also thinking about what other people are thinking of you and saying about you. Or is your vision so set on Jesus that you are sincere in your devotion to him and you're generous because of him, because it's all about his glory and not your own. Here are some practical ways that we can take this step. One, reset your mornings.

Start your day with God's word before anything else. And so I actually, I practice what I preach. This morning I got out of bed, I grabbed my phone like I typically will do. And although I usually will grab it and go on social media because it's just a habit that I've developed that it's not a good one. And so what I do today, I was like, I better do what I'm getting ready to say I'm going to do.

So I pulled up Bible app and began to read. And I got more reading done this morning than I typically do. And I set my focus right off the bat on him. I prayed and it made a difference in how my day started.

Maybe fast with your eyes. Maybe we need to take a break from social media. Maybe we need to take a break from Netflix. Take a break from Amazon shopping for a week, which that can be kind of an addicting thing, too. Looking for that sale.

Prime day's coming up. I'm gonna buy something I may not use for years because it was a good deal.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus. I love that old song. Use your time and your talent and your treasure. Use them to help you redirect your attention. And then finally, we can lay up our treasures as God's kingdom citizens by recommitting our service to God alone.

Recommitting our service to God alone. He says, no one can serve two masters.

And this is opposed to the idea of hablos. There's that word that we used earlier. A single focus, a single master. You can't do them both evenly. Like, okay, okay, I can do this.

I can serve God, but I can also serve mammon. I can also serve myself and serve. No one's always going to supersede the other. And he makes it really like blunt right here. He says, either he will hate the one and love the other.

So he's saying, you try to serve two masters. What you actually are doing is saying, I hate that master and I love this one. Charles Spurgeon said, God in the world will never agree. And however much you may attempt it, we shall never be able to serve both. You can live for this world or you can live for the next.

But to love, to live equally for both, it's impossible. Good Spurge. So he says, you'll either be devoted to the one and despise the other man. Those are some strong words. So he says, you cannot serve God and money.

And I already kind of spoiled this for us earlier, but it was important for that we get in the mindset this word money is the word mamonas in Greek, which is where we get the word mammon. It's a personified treasure. It really. I mean, it's an idol. So many of the church fathers described mammon as like a rival deity.

It's like opposing Christ to want lordship over a heart. So Daniel Akin says, either you are mastered by money and you therefore. Sorry, I'm pointing. You therefore ignore God or make him a bellhop for your business, or you are mastered by God and make money a servant of the kingdom. This quote offended me this week.

The whole concept of me trying to make God a bellhop for me, how diminishing in my heart to ever desire that. And I would never put that into words that say that, but my actions do so. Church, I heard us. We need to understand this. The King of the universe does not share allegiance.

The Creator does not share worship with his creation. John Stott says anyone who divides his or her allegiance between God and money has already given it to money. Since God can be served only with an entire and exclusive devotion, to try and share him with other loyalties is to have opted for idolatry. And when the choice is seen for what it is, a choice between creator and creature, between the glorious and personal God and a miserable thing called money, between worship and idolatry, seems inconceivable that anybody could make the wrong choice. But we do.

Often Paul said Colossians 3. Don't be greedy, for a greedy person is an idolater. Worshiping the things of this world. The opposite of generosity is greed. So when we hold these things close to our chest, we worship the world.

I placed this stool up here to illustrate this point. Imagine here that this is the throne of our lives. And that whenever we try to say I worship God and money, we're asking God to sit on one corner and to share it with Mammon. But what he's saying is, nope, it can't happen. I won't let it happen.

I am God. I alone am worthy and worthy of praise and worthy of glory. So he's saying, you're either going to have me on the throne or you're going to have something else, but it can't be both. And so when I have God on the throne, then that means everything else in my life is going to serve him. It's going to always serve whatever's on the throne, whatever's the most important to me.

And so when I say that God is on the throne, then that means my money has to serve him.

Whatever's sitting in my bank account, for the good or for the worse, that is his money. And if it's running low that month, that's a conversation between me and God. Hey, God. Count's looking a little low. That's your money, right?

My possessions. You know when a strong wind hits your house and knocks your soffits loose and you're going to have to pay $1,150 to have those repaired? Not a true story for me at all that happened recently, if God's on the throne, then I'm concerned about that. But I'm not concerned about it because the Joneses are going to look at my house and think it looks ridiculous or that I'm just worried about my stuff. I'm concerned about that because that's his stuff.

God, hey, here's this shelter you put over my head. I'm trying my best to be a good steward of it. What are we going to do about this, God? Because this thing serves you. When I think about my legacy, if God is on the throne, then the impact that I plan to leave here on Earth, whether it be through my job or through my kids, maybe it be through the impact I might have in at the church, that I'm doing everything I can to make that legacy fit under his authority, that even my children, that I've given them to the Lord and said, God, your will be done.

And that's a scary thing to consider, that you're really the Father and I'm going to trust you with the results. And wherever you take them, wherever you lead them, they're yours. That wherever you take the name Stephen, whether it be you rub it in the dirt or exalt it, that name's yours. And that leads us to the final, which is what am I most tempted to put on the throne? Me.

I want so badly to make everything revolve around me and to make it all about me. Money, possessions, all that stuff. I want it all to kind of simultaneously happen. But here's what I'm saying. Whenever I put myself on the throne, I'm saying, God, be my bellhop.

I want you to be my servant. How despicable to say something like that. Well, I'd never say that with my words, but my schedule says something different. My mouth and what I exalt and glorify says something different. And my heart can say something different.

The God you trust to provide for you is the God that you truly serve. And ironically, I find that the word mammon sounds an awful lot like the word manna. But they couldn't be more different than one another. Mammon is something that we seek to provide for ourselves. But when we look at the word manna, which is the bread that God provided to the Israelites in the desert, he provided had never existed before and has not existed since.

It came from God. They couldn't provide for themselves because they were starving in the desert, and he provided it. And even to make things even, like, more practical for us today, he wouldn't provide it on the Sabbath and wouldn't let them harvest it either. So they had to work a little extra harder the day before the Sabbath. So that way they would rest, learn what it's like to trust God with the day off.

So how do we commit? How do we recommit our service to God alone? Give God the best of your time, your energy and your attention. Are you still obeying God when it's inconvenient or costly? Are you getting so ticked off because you're sitting on the throne and you're like, God, let this happen.

And maybe you're here this morning, you're angry with God today. Maybe you're distant from God. Maybe somebody in your life died and you've been mad at him ever since then. Because, let's face it, that person was somebody you were placing your treasure in. They, at the end of the day, matter to you more than the wealth of the kingdom of heaven.

And that has put you in a place where you're distant from God today. How do we counter this?

Well, here's one example. Recommit to a ministry so serve God. The act of serving him will actually help reorient your focus and your heart. It'll help correct some of these things. It'll remind you by that act of service that I'm not getting paid anything for this.

This isn't helping my earthly kingdom at all. I'm only helping his kingdom. It helps us take a Sabbath seriously. I feel like that we don't talk about that often enough. But I have to confess to you that this morning I literally was waking up thinking about how much work I had to do this coming week and literally thinking, I'm probably going to have to.

Monday is my Sabbath as a pastor here. It's how we've worked my schedule out. That's supposed to be a day where Stephen honors what God told him to do in the Bible and takes a Sabbath and rests. But guess what Stephen wanted to do this morning. I need to work because it won't get done otherwise.

Can I trust God that I can get more done in six days than I can in seven? And say, you're going to have to make up the results of the difference because, God, I can't do it. I just can't do it all. And then finally tithe is, can you trust God that you would live better off 90%, that you would off of 100%?

What would it look like to just radically say, God, that 10% is yours? I have no clue how I'm going to make this work. But I trust you with the results. That act of giving him some of your mammon, it actually helps correct you, helps focus our eyes and change our heart. So, friends, he's called us to these three things this morning.

I'm gonna say them one more time. Realign your hearts on heavenly things, refocus our vision on Christ and recommit our service to God alone. Let's pray.

Maybe you're here this morning and this concept of heart and vision and service is foreign to you because you don't know Jesus. You can't recommit a heart that wasn't committed in the first place. And Jesus promises us in the Bible, I will give you a new heart. I will put a new spirit in you. So, friend, if you would pray with me right now.

We're going to ask God to do that. We're going to ask God to give you a new heart. Let's pray together. Jesus, tired of trying to run the show myself, tired of trying to live the American dream and hoping that that would satisfy the mammon dream.

And if the word I need to use here is to say, I give you lordship whatever word it needs to be, but I'm just going to say, you get it all, you get to be the king. Now I give you my heart, would you make me new now? Would you change me? Because I can't do it in my own power, Jesus, I'm sinful and I ask you to forgive me. And I confess here and now you are lord over my life, friend.

If you prayed that prayer, then Jesus said, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. We believe that you've gone from death to life. A new heart is in you. And maybe you're here today and you've prayed that before, but you're very convicted right now because you recognize that your heart off, your vision is bad, you have a bad eye, your service is to yourself. Would you pray with me right now, Jesus?

You know, you and I both know what you were saying just now to be during this sermon. You and I both know where you're poking my heart and convicting me. Help me now to take that first step towards making this right with you. I want my treasure to be a permanent one that is in you and not in and of myself in this world. So help me now, Jesus, we ask this in Jesus name, Amen.

Audio

Transcript

Good morning, church. It's good to see all of you this morning. I'm very thankful you're here. We are in part 10 of our series on the Sermon on the Mount. We've entitled this series Kingdom Living.

If it's your first time with us, you're just picking up good news for you. Every one of these sermons that Christ preaches on the Sermon on the Mount kind of stand alone in their own way. But you can certainly go back and check out where we've been. Matthew chapter five through chapter seven. You can go online at Eastgate Church and see what we've already done in the last nine weeks.

But this morning we've got a really a wonderful topic for you from Christ Jesus in the Book of Matthew, chapter 6, 1924. In this one, we've entitled it Laying Up Treasures in the Kingdom. We're bringing this right out of the text. You're going to see just how Christ applies this. That Christ places this eternal meaning, this eternal purpose on our goals.

That's well beyond, that's far beyond what we set for ourselves, what, what we've set for our work, our relationships, our time, all of that. That Christ has a greater meaning for all of this stuff. Now we have to admit something as we approach this topic, that there are many things in our life that compete with the culture that God is trying to build, with the culture that God has in store for the kingdom of God. But also that kingdom is beginning now in his people. And that there are things constantly in competition with living out a kingdom citizen culture.

In this life, we really deal with a battle that's pretty simple, although it takes many forms. But the battle really is between two masters. And that's what Jesus is going to describe in today's message. And the battle is between God and money. Now, I recognize that money can take a lot of forms.

In fact, Jesus uses a word here. He uses the Greek word mamonos. If you have an old King James version, you, you'll see it says God and mammon. That's purposeful. Because this idea of mammon is a little bit more than currency.

The idea of what Christ is talking about is the idea that we would serve anything that is not God, that we would have wholehearted devotion to something other than the King of the universe, our greatest adversary, whatever that might be. You're gonna have to fill in that blank here, though. Christ says, it's mammon, it's money. It's. It's that thing that puts you in opposition to Him.

So this idea of Mammon. I get it. That's a word, and I've already said it several times. And you're like, what in the world is that word? That's a word we don't use much.

Unless you grew up reading the King James, you may have never even heard that word. Mammon, though, represents all the things that direct our attention away from a holy God, away from his kingdom, plan for us. And a lot of times it takes the form of wealth, comfort, security, success. Mammon often looks like that. The American dream, then, the white picket fences, the two kids and a dog, the groomed lawn, all of that stuff is not innately in and of itself evil.

But the problem with it is if it's left unchecked, it becomes not the American dream, but mammon's dream. If left unchecked, it's climb higher, earn more, consume constantly. You deserve it. We live in a culture that just says, constantly, you deserve this, you need this, want more, have more. Mammon.

That voice, whatever it is, it never says you have enough. It always continues to whisper, just a little more, just a little farther. And that's where Christ is going to spend these few verses today. And I want to help unpack that with you. And it's really blessed me this week.

There's a lot of emptiness in that pursuit. And some of you have discovered that the pursuit of money, the pursuit of mammon, if you will. Some of you have discovered it already that that's an empty vein, pursuit. Some of you haven't discovered that yet. And I'm hopeful that you can hear this word today and go, okay, there's a better way that Christ is not trying to hurt me.

In fact, he's trying to give me the right path that'll give me a purpose, a peace, the true fruit of the Spirit in my life. If I follow Him, I'll understand that. If I pursue something else, I won't. See, Jesus has an ultimate pursuit that takes us out of this rat race that so many of us are running in and starts giving us meaning and purpose. So here we are.

Matthew, chapter six. Jesus continued the Sermon on the Mount, teaching that those whose heart is on God, his kingdom, citizens, will lay up treasures in heaven. So let's read this together. Matthew 6, 1924. It says, 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 hear this church where your treasure is, there Your heart will be also. For 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 that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness? No one, and this is a key summary, 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. Here, this church, you cannot serve God money. God bless the reading of his Word.

Amen. I hope that this encourages and blesses you because this isn't meant to be discouraging. This isn't meant to put you in conflict. This is meant to point you to a better way of life, one that's truly fulfilling outside of the rat race that can be American culture. Christ is trying to help you here.

And it begins with understanding how to lay up treasures, treasures that have eternal value. So here's where Christ begins. Here's. Here's the first way that we see Christ mentioning that we can lay up treasures in heaven. It starts by realigning our hearts on heavenly things.

By realigning our hearts on heavenly things, Jesus begins again. This has been his pattern throughout the Sermon on the Mount. He begins with what not to do and then what to do again. It's the hey, don't touch the hot stove. Instead do this.

He's trying to help us little kids to not do something really dumb and do something that has meaning. He says, do not lay up for yourself treasures on earth. This is really funny the way this language is here. We see it as lay up treasures in the Greek. It's literally thesaurizothesaros.

It's a repetitive word in verb and noun form. It's where we get the word thesaurus, which technically means a storehouse of words, if you will. But here it's to mean do not treasure earthly treasures. That's really the base form of what he's saying here. Don't make the things that you can store up in this life on this earth your greatest life's purpose, your treasure.

Because this stuff. Guess what I got bad news. You probably already knew it, but Jesus is reminding you, do you know this stuff's going to all fall apart? Moth and rust is going to destroy it. That means all, all of Earth's creatures and all of Earth's elements are going to begin to destroy your well built stuff.

That's terrible news, isn't it? But it's true. It's true. It's funny. Just think about, step back for just a moment and think about this.

Everything on Earth is trying to return to its original state. You build a bridge, guess what will happen after several decades? It will become the ground again. It will rust, it will fall apart. No matter how well you build your deck, my friend, it will eventually get bugs, get mold, get to where it's fallen apart.

No matter how well you build your house, eventually all things return to the earth. That's what Jesus is saying here. And that's not confusing to any of us. But it's pretty good to step back and say, okay, am I wasting my entire life on things that 10 years after I die, no one will remember and they won't exist. This is pretty careful thought.

And then he says, and if that doesn't get it, if the elements don't get it, somebody will just break in and take it. Well, praise God. So no matter what I do when I'm trying to build up treasures on this earth, I have to recognize something. They are very finite. They are impermanent.

There's nothing about them that has long term effect. Now let me ask you, this church. Is Jesus here teaching, hey, men and women, don't work, don't put food on the table, don't take care of your household because all that stuff's finite? Absolutely not. That's not what he's saying.

But don't treasure those things. There's a difference. He's not saying don't work. He's saying don't work for the sake of that being what you all about. I know there's some men and women in this room right now that you think career is what you were made for.

This is not true. You were made for the Lord Jesus and Him alone. You understand this. There's a huge difference. You should work because you've been called and God has shaped you to do something that's intrinsic and perfect for you.

Like he has made Miss Nevada to be a nurse. He did not make me to do that. I don't want to deal with that. There's some gross stuff that is gross some of what y' all do. And you might would say the same thing to me.

I really don't want to have to do some of the stuff you have to do. And we would all kind of feel that way, right? But that's not. Here's what's crazy. This is going to sound so wild to y' all.

I am not a pastor first. I am a son of God first. I serve The Lord Jesus, before I serve anybody, yes, it seems to me he has called me to serve you as a shepherd. But. But that's not who I am at my core.

If I strip all of that way, the great news is I am still a child of God and so are you. If I could strip away your career, your family, even if I. Because some of you are identifying with. I'm a father, I'm a mother, I'm a husband, that's good stuff. That's not who you are.

You are a child of God, which means your ultimate purpose is him and nothing else. And when you make it anything else, you get this word from Jesus. Stop treasuring what earthly treasures. Because they're not treasures at all. They're all going to fall apart, get stolen.

They're not going to last. And that's not a legacy, friends. That's not a legacy. Because that stuff will be forgotten. A legacy is who you take with you and your devotion to a holy God, that stuff is forever.

So he says, don't store up like this. That's foolish. We even know this. When we would step back, he says no. Instead, lay up treasures in heaven where none of this stuff happens.

God is sovereign over this life. But in that place, he will not let it see any rust, any destruction. This place to which we are all going one day, if we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, that place, there are no thieves. There is no elemental things destroying what we've stored. He says, store, lay up treasures there.

Treasure that. Why? Because this says so much about your heart. Jesus puts it all together in the last piece of this first section. He says, this is really the issue.

It's not what you're doing, how you're doing it, it's really why you're doing it. What's going on in here Again and again, this is what scripture will teach you. That God cares about what's going on in here so much more than he cares about the activities. Some of you, this is really good news. This ought to encourage you because some of you have done some stuff this week that was not great work.

You made some mistakes. Maybe you forgot something. We make mistakes all the time as human beings. Here's the great news. God doesn't care that much about the activity of your work.

He cares about the heart. He wants to know, are you fully devoted to him in all of these things? And how are you seeing Kingdom purpose in the job he shaped you to do, in the relationships he's given you? How are you seeing Kingdom purposes in this Parents in the room. This will totally reshape the way you speak to your children.

If you could really understand this. Why did God give me children? Was it just so I could feel a certain intimacy with people? Is it so that I could have fellowship with them? Sure.

But that's not the primary reason. He decided to make you a steward of an eternal soul. And he has a kingdom purpose for that person. What an incredible. An incredible task that is.

You better be on your knees in prayer asking him, how do I do that? How do I steward that child that some of y' all have had? If you have several, you're going to probably make at least one that you're like, I don't. If they come to you, Jesus, it'll be a pure miracle. Because from a very early age, you'll start going, wow, this one is going to prison or going to be president.

There won't be anything in between. I mean, some of our kids are like that. You better be on your knees asking him, help me to point them to you, Jesus, Help me so much. Our hearts should be fully given over to Jesus and all of this. Why?

Because he ransomed us with his life. Look, what Jesus did for us was he gave us his life. And he's asking, hey, would you now devote your heart to me? I paid the ultimate price for you, a price that you couldn't even pay for yourself. Now will you realign your heart for me?

I love what Dr. Akin writes on his. He's got a wonderful commentary on this, and I read a lot of great commentaries this week on this. But in Christ Centered Exposition, he writes this, that one of the basic and fundamental truths of the Christian faith is that our heart, that is who we really are on the inside, should belong to God. He created us and he has redeemed us in Christ, purchasing us with the precious blood of His Son.

To love anyone, don't miss this church. To love anyone or anything or to treasure anyone or anything more than Jesus is spiritual adultery. It is adultery of the heart. He has done everything that you would love him with your whole heart. To love anything more than him is like spiritual adultery.

I know that's harsh, but I think that's true. That's really true. Your ultimate purpose, the reason you were created, was for God and nothing else, seek treasure that lasts. Then what does it mean to have a kingdom of heaven kind of treasure? Christ describes this in a couple of places.

In Matthew 13, he tells a story about the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which. Which A man found and covered up, then in his joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. So what is Jesus telling us in this little story? He's saying that it's worth everything to have it, that nothing else has any value compared to it. You would sell everything to be a part of what God is doing in his kingdom.

Paul writes to the Colossians. He says, if you've then been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. There's some things in this life that go with us, that are treasures that you can move forward. Do you understand this?

Some of it is sitting in the room. Some of it is down that hallway down there. Parents in the room. Your ultimate heavenly treasure is to build up children's faith that they would see you and your walk with Jesus and desire to walk with you in it until the point where they can walk with Christ on their own. You're just trying to do a holy handoff.

I know the Lord, I know my kid. Let me connect the dots. All right? Have fun with the Lord in the walk. Who knows what he's got you up to?

It better be a lot different than me, but this is going to be great. I can't wait to watch. Like quivers, the Bible calls them like arrows in a quiver, that you would shoot them directly towards God to center their lives on that. And some of them are going to buck against that. They're going to fight that just like you do constantly in your flesh fighting against what God desires.

So we take people with us, your neighbors, your family. These are heavenly treasures, eternal souls. That's the main one. But your devotion, your walk with Christ that comes with you, like some of us are going to get there and we're going to have to actually discover who this God is because we've spent so little time with Him. It's going to be shocking.

I think for some of us. The Bible describes this, that some of us will get there like our hair's on fire. We came in as if passing through a great fire because we just barely made it. At the end of the day, I'll be thankful I made it. I don't have to worry or be doubtful about this because I know Christ is the reason I get to make it.

Not my good works, but it would be great to go ahead and begin a heavenly relationship that has eternal value. And it starts now. It's not like it gets Better later. Oh, it does, but it gets better the moment you start spending time with him. I heard this stat just this morning and it was one I'd heard before, but it was a good reminder that the person who moves from having about three times a week, a daily time in prayer or Bible study, or both, when they move from having three of those a week to just four of those a week, the reduction in like depression, anxiety, the aptitude to be in sin, all diminishes by like 90%.

What does that mean? That means when your week is mostly spent in spiritual devotion to God, it helps.

Wow. No kidding. You got to be kidding me. So when I pray and talk to God and spend time in his word, I'm less likely to want to do dumb stuff. Who knew?

It's amazing. I'm more likely to talk to people the way God wants me to talk to them. How is that possible? It's like it works or something. Some of us don't have a good discipline of this at all.

I'm saying that that kind of stuff is treasures in heaven. That kind of stuff lasts. There's this wonderful parable. I want to read a little bit of it to you. This is in Luke chapter 12, verse 16 through 21.

And this is a fascinating story. Luke chapter 12, picking up at 16. It says this. And he told them a parable saying, the land of a rich man produced plentifully. And he thought to himself, what shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?

And he said, I will do this. I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and all my goods. And I will say to my soul, O soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years. Relax, eat, drink and be merry. But God said to him, o fool, this night your soul is required of you and the things you have prepared, whose will they now be?

So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich towards God. Some of us are in a state of thinking I need to build bigger and bigger barns rather than pursuing eternal things. How are you to know that it's not God's hand of provision that you would be the kind of person who passes this on? I think the Bible says God loves a cheerful giver. What does he mean by that?

He wants to find people that are open handed towards him and then open handed towards others that he can just use like a river. Hey, you know what I've discovered? I've discovered when I give Marcus something, Marcus gives to other People, guess what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna give Marcus more. I'm gonna keep giving Marcus more.

Not because Marcus keeps building bigger barns. Cause otherwise that's not being generous towards or rich towards God at all. He wants to be a part of generosity. Do you know the Bible mentions giving in the sense of God's giving more than almost any other subject. More than love.

It's like over 2,000 times. You'll find the word give in the Bible. Our God at the end of the day is a generous God. And he wants to be generous to you and through you. And the word here from Christ, I think, is when your heart is aligned with him, you start becoming a conduit of God's generosity.

You just start being the kind of person that lets this flow. I bet some of you have met people like that and you know what a joy it is to be with them. Are you teaching your kids, your family, your friends, what it means to have heavenly treasure? There are some things you might consider doing, just real nuts and bolts kind of application. What would it look like to give in such a way that it stretches your faith a little bit?

Not necessarily financially. It could be of your time. It could be that you're very much protecting your time. What would it look like to stretch a little bit? Not just give your leftovers to God?

What would it look like to begin to track your kingdom, heavenly treasure, investments? To where you start saying, all right, today I spent time with you in prayer, Lord. I spent time trying to be generous with others in conversation with my stuff. I served more. What would it look like to begin to track that?

And just maybe weeks later, step back and go, okay, what did that do? I can almost guarantee you there's going to be an effect.

So that's the first. Realign your heart on God. The second is this. And this is where it gets weird, all right? I gotta admit, I had too much fun.

I had so much written on this second point this week, y' all. I got downright terrified that I was gonna ruin your lunch, alright? So this point is incredible. The point is this. Refocus our vision on Christ.

Christ moves into this curious phase, refocusing our vision. He moves into the statement that sounds basic and obscure. You're like, why is he even talking about this? He just said, hey, where your treasure is, there your heart is also. Don't be, you know, just be generous to people.

Be stored up treasures in heaven. Okay, got it, got it, got it. Oh, yeah, and by the way, the eye is the lamp of the body. What? What's that got to do with anything?

What are you talking about? And here's part of what's going on here. First of all, this is kind of an idiom of the day, so it doesn't jump out to us, because that's not something people say a lot. But when the people listening at the Sermon on the Mount heard it, they'd go, okay, we've heard this before. Where's he going with this?

Because it was a phrase, most scholars think, a phrase that was often said, the eye is the lamp of the body. Makes sense. So the way in which we see light comes through the eye. That gives light to the body. Now we know where we're going.

It's like, if you get blinded, that must be such a terrifying thing, because now you live, in a sense, in a state of darkness, and so you begin to need a lot more help to get around. But the eye is the lamp. So what's he talking about here? What does that have to do with storing up treasures in heaven? Well, here's where it gets fun.

All right? And I got to go quick through this, because I have way too much. He says in verse 22 that the eye that is healthy is full of light, and the eye being healthy is this word haplous. The healthy word is the word in Greek, haplous. And that doesn't mean anything to you?

I get that. But the word literally means sincere or single, and that sounds weird. What does that got to do with being healthy? The word sincere? The King James, in fact, translates it that way.

It says, if therefore thine eye be single, haplus. So singleness has something to do with the health of the eye. And Christ is saying, this is a good thing. This means you're full of light. So he's speaking to this idea that Christians should be sincere, be genuine in their faith, be single minded.

The word single is the idea that I have my eyes set solely on something, singly, sincerely, on Christ. That's what he's speaking to. Here we can see examples of this is how this ties very often to the idea of generosity. So it sounds weird at first, but they would have understood it better in their day. And now we can understand it, too, as we dig in.

Second Corinthians, chapter eight, it says, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. That word generosity. There is again the word haplous, same one that Jesus says is a healthy eye. 2nd Corinthians 9 goes on to say you will be enriched in every way, to be haplous, generous in every way. So let's continue to chase this.

So Jesus, what he's doing here is using this very famous quote of the day to begin to get people to see. There's something about having a sincere I, a single mindedness towards God that changes the way I interact with others. It changes my heart, it changes my generosity. He's really doing this good eye, bad eye kind of back and forth. This contrast.

Now I will say the Bible Project is a source that I used quite a bit on an article on this passage. I would encourage you, those of you who like to do a little outside reading. They did a really great job on this section. But in the book of, or in the Hebrew, I should say in the ancient language of Hebrew, Jesus is contrasting the good eye with the bad eye, the tovayin with the ra' ayin. This is this idea that the good eye often means generous, abundant, sincere.

Here's a couple of examples or here's one about the good eye. Proverbs 22, it says the one who is generous. Again, that's the word tovayim, good eye sounds so weird. If you read this literally, it would say the one who has a good eye will be blessed. Why?

Because he gives some food to the poor. So the people hearing Jesus in this day, and I hope now you can hear it in your day, when Jesus says the one who has a healthy eye, he is saying the one who has an eye on God and is generous. That's what he means by this phraseology. And the people of that day I think would have gotten it. Jesus probably literally said to them, those with the tovaim, the good eye.

And they would have thought perhaps of proverbs. In fact, the opposite is also true. Proverbs 23, it says, do not eat the bread of a selfish person. The word there selfish is bad eye. It's weird, I know, but it's the way their speech was working.

So Jesus is communicating something very rich here. He is saying that kingdom citizens should have a good eye. They should have a heart that's set on generosity, a sincerity, a sincere devotion to God that's single minded. I put this above all other things. That's what he means by good eye.

And then he also really paints a picture of what the bad eye is. Throughout scripture, the bad eye is someone who's self absorbed, double minded in their efforts. Y' all ever met any double agents in your life? They'll tell you one thing and then when you're not around, they'll say something totally different about you to others. Those are just the most wonderful people in your life, aren't they?

Aren't they just? So you want to surround yourselves with people like that, right? That will be liars behind your back. Or maybe they're lying to your face and telling the truth behind your back, I don't know. These are the kind of people who pretend to care for others while staying self obsessed.

They posture as generous, but their generosity, the true agenda. Do you know some people's agenda with generosity is personal gain. They look giving, but they actually just want power or they want to look good. Some of us have struggled with that. It's not uncommon to man.

It's not like some do and some don't. But in Christ Jesus, he's calling us to have a healthy eye, otherwise our eye is bad. And he says that becomes full of darkness. To the point where he says something that's again kind of obscure. Where he says, how great then is that darkness?

If the light that's within you is darkness, that is terribly dark. Ephesians chapter 4. Paul writes, Their minds are full of darkness. They wonder far from the life God gives because they have closed their minds and hardened their hearts against Him. One commentator writer on this says when greed forces out any trace of inner good and only evil remains, the inner person is indescribably evil.

The greedy person's corruption is complete, leaving no room remains for love for God or for the pursuit of the kingdom or its righteousness. This is this idea that to be double minded is really in a way to be single minded. The moment you make money or success or comfort or greed, the moment that that begins to take the throne of your life, God is not there. This might sound wild to you, but God does not share the throne. That's not how he works.

And you've heard this phrase? I bet I heard it my whole life. Either he is Lord of all or he's not Lord at all. Either he's Lord of all or he's not Lord at all. That's who God is.

God describes himself in fact as a jealous God. Jealous for your affection. Why? Because he made you and he really expected that you would walk with him. And he's done everything for you.

It's like not only making the child, but giving him everything he needs. And then that kid just runs from you. And some of you may have expected experience that. Imagine the heart that God has. In that same way that he expected more from you, he expected you to walk with him.

Set your eyes on things above them. Make the vision of your life, Christ and him alone. And when your vision is on Jesus, what he's saying is, when your eye is healthy, sincere, single minded on him, guess what begins to happen. Open handed people. You no longer look at your stuff as the purpose.

It is mere means. This is just the means to an end of serving God. If he's given me much, then he must want me to give back much. If he's given me little, well then I guess I'm supposed to give back a little. Maybe that's easier in some ways.

I can promise you this. Jesus says it's hard for a rich man to get into heaven because when you have a whole big wealth, it's hard to go, okay, this is still yours, God. We have struggles with that. When we have just a little bit, we go, eh, eh. It's almost mercy.

Like, I don't like being poor. Well, in a way it's easier not saying, hey, God, make me poor. I don't think any of us are that crazy, right?

Set your minds on things that are above. There's a better vision. Whether it's much or whether it's little. It's all about God and His kingdom. 2nd Corinthians 4.

It says as we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen. For. For the things that are seen are transient means, they're impermanent, they come and go. But the things that are unseen are eternal. The writer of Hebrews says, then fix our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, the joy set before him.

He endured the cross scorning its shame and is sat down now at the right hand of the throne of God. We have something we can set our eyes on. It's not obscure. It's the Savior. It's the Lord Jesus.

Now, I have to admit something. The words good eye kind of brings something to mind for me. The words good, I immediately put me at a baseball field. I don't know if that happened to anybody else. As I started saying good eye, but I couldn't help myself.

Picture myself behind a backstop here in good eye. And we say that you'll hear it constantly at a baseball field when a batter does not swing at a ball, if it comes in, it's not a strike. Good eye. Or you might hear from some others. I umpired for a little while and I can tell you right now that is a miserable job.

Parents are savages. All right, Some of y' all are. Some of y' all are. And you need to check yourself with Christ Jesus, you just knew because you're saying some things to people that you don't know that are mean as mess. All right, come on, blue.

You know, that was a strike. You know, so some. Half the audience is saying, good eye. The other half is going to. It's because all of us in that game, we really want to be in charge of calling balls and strikes.

We want to get involved. Hey, if we start saying certain things, maybe it'll, you know, come on, ump, you know, then you missed that one. And maybe he'll see a little better. But here's the thing. None of us there, none of the players, none of the coaches have any charge over balls and strikes.

The umpires do. And they do it according to the rules. Now, they don't always do a good job. That's not the point. But it's up to them, and it's up to the rules.

And when they get it right, when they're doing a good job, we say, good eye, good eye. The thing is, in this life, we are the exact same way. This particular illustration applies just one to one, to life. Because a lot of us, we want to call balls and strikes. We want to say, that's a good eye and that's a bad eye.

But we are just players. We aren't the umpires. We didn't create the rules. We don't get to call balls and strikes. Jesus has said what a good eye is, and it's not up to you.

The Creator of this creation, he made the rules and he is the judge. And here's what Jesus is saying plainly, that the person with a good eye is the one who is generous, fully devoted to him. Oh, you can fuss all you want at the umpire and say, that was a strike. Good luck. He made the game, he judges it.

And this isn't a bad thing. Ask yourself this. Would it be so bad for me to be generous and be devoted to the one true God? I love what DA Carson writes about this. He says the good eye is one fixed on God, unwavering in its gaze, constant in its fixation.

The individual with a single eye. Listen to that. Toward kingdom values is the person characterized by maximum understanding of divinely revealed truth and an unabashed, pure behavior.

It doesn't make you better Church. I've got a pause there. It doesn't make you better to be the kind of Christian that I'm trying not to look holier than thou. Well, that's good. But if you're also trying to just not be holy, that's a problem.

All right? You don't have to be, like, telling everybody how great you are. But at the same time, God does want to be in charge of your tongue. He does want to be in charge of your drinking. There's a lot of things that God would desire to be in charge of.

He says, be holy. What does he say? Not just in the Old Testament, in the New, he says, be holy for I am holy. He wasn't joking. So here, the single eye, the good eye that looks to God says, alright, God, I need to clean up a couple things.

The way I talk to people, the way I behave, my disciplines are off. I'm not doing this to earn. I'm doing this as a result of my devotion to him. What it looks like to be a follower of Christ is to be changing. We have a motto here at church.

It doesn't ever bother anybody. They love it. Come as you are and be forever changed by the love of Jesus. And we go, well, that sounds great. Did y' all hear Be forever changed.

There's nothing harder than being a pastor of a church and seeing people year after year Ms. Be Forever Changed. I continue to come as I am. Praise God. Wow.

I mean, like, monkeys could do that. Like, at some point you got to hear the word of God and go, he says, be holy, for he's holy and he wants all of me.

Carson goes on to say, this person's eye is on the prize of one treasure, one kingdom, one master, and will not be distracted by anything this world has to offer. I want to be that guy. I'm not there yet, Church. Don't hear me saying this as if I've got it together. This is a challenge that every single day I have to challenge myself again to say I'm singularly devoted to Christ.

Now, that doesn't mean I stop being a good pastor, that I stop being a good husband. In fact, my singular devotion to Christ makes me better at those things. But if that is the purpose of my effort, I will be terrible at it. If my goal church. This might sound crazy.

If my goal is to be a good pastor, I promise you I won't be. Because I'll start to think I've got to make people happy, I've got to please them, and that's not the best thing for you. It might sound good at first for me to say, hey, you're okay. Don't worry about it. But in the end, you're going to Run off a cliff when I could have said, avoid the cliff.

And at first you're going to go, but I like the cliff. Sorry, it'll kill you. The most loving thing I can do for you is truth. But if I'm trying to be good and trying to be pleasing, I won't be good, you know? But if I say, hey, I'm yours, whatever you call me to be, just help me today, Lord.

Help me to walk with you in my profession. Help me to walk with you as a father. I will do these things better when I have a single vision on him. Do you get this? I hope this makes sense to you because this is life changing kind of stuff.

And I would ask you, what are the kind of things in your life that are distracting you from your focus on Jesus? Are you seeing the world through the lens of Christ? There's a couple things you might do to try to fix this. Maybe reset your mornings. Some of you have a terrible morning routine and you wonder why you're angry all day.

It's because the first thing you do is click the news on. No surprise here, friend. Maybe don't do that first. Maybe don't do it at all. You listen to your heart, but don't start there.

Start here before. I mean, this is really good instruction. Before your feet even come out of the bed, stay put for a second and say, God, what are we up to today? I know I'm going to be easy. I'm a squirrel just like everybody else.

I'm going to be chasing all kinds of stuff. Help me to be focused today. God, on you. Where are we going? I got to go to work today.

But you're here. You're with me. I start there. Maybe I might even do this crazy thing. I might turn worship music on in the shower rather than Eminem.

I mean, if you're listening to Eminem in the shower, whatever. I'm just saying that might be why you're a little angry. Because the dude is always angry. And I like nf. Some of y' all like rap.

I like nf, but again, he makes me feel angry. He's even talking somewhat about spiritual good things, but it's just the way it comes across. I'm like, I want to fight. I don't know why I want to fight so bad. Reset your morning.

And there's some things. Maybe it would be just a good idea for a little while to fast. Take a fast from maybe social media. Some of y' all are so just stuck. And it's because you're Spending hours doom scrolling.

Take a fast, refocus your vision. What would it look like Christ Jesus today, not gonna worry about tomorrow. What would it look like today? To give you all my time, talent and treasure. I'm gonna give you all that is me today.

We'll talk about tomorrow. Tomorrow. Here's the third and I got no time to talk about this. I knew this was gonna happen to me. That point was so juicy.

Third way is to recommit our service to God alone. Recommit our service to God alone. This is really the conclusion statement of all of this. Jesus is saying, hey, you can't serve two masters. Not really.

You might think you can. I'll dabble a little here, dabble a little here. I'll do church on Sundays and be all about mammon on Mondays. Jesus says it's not a thing. It's not how this works because I am Lord, I am Master.

I created the mammon you're serving. You're serving a created thing. You can't do it. It's either me or it's not me. Charles Spurgeon writing on this.

He says, God and the world will never agree however much we attempt it. We shall never be able to serve both. You can live for this world or you can live for the next. But to live equally for both is impossible. Man, that is a statement.

That's kind of a bar to be honest with you. You can live for this life or you can live for the next, but you can't do both. There's a huge difference. He says you go on to hate the one and love the other or devote to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money Mammon, because mammon is going to constantly steal your devotion.

Dr. Akin in that same book I quoted earlier, he says it this way. Either you are mastered by money and therefore ignore God and make him a bailhop for your business. That is quite an image. Or you are mastered by God and you make money a servant of the kingdom.

This is how you will know who is lord of your life. I use money for for kingdom purposes rather than I pray to God for more money. There's a huge difference.

Some of you are struggling in this area. This can be a really hard subject, especially if you're strapped right now you're trying to figure out how to make ends meet. I would encourage you friend, to just think about this differently. Be praying instead of God. You've got to help me pay my bills.

You've got to do instead be saying God, it Looks like at this moment you've trusted me with very little and I am stressed about it. God, help me to know how to lay up treasures for your kingdom when it doesn't look like I have any to give.

I just believe in my heart that God gives more to those who will continue to be sincere, devoted to him. And that's not the reason you do it, but it is an effect. Church, I just want to urge you that the King of the universe does not share allegiance. He does not. The king, the Creator, he does not share worship with his creation.

One scholar on this said, anybody who divides his allegiance, his or her allegiance between God and money has already given it to money. Since God can be served only with entire and exclusive devotion, to try to share him with our other loyalties is to have adopted idolatry. And when the choice is seen for what it is, a choice between creator and creature, between the glorious personal God and a miserable thing called money, between worship and idolatry, it seems inconceivable that anybody could make the wrong choice. The problem is we just don't see it clearly. This is why our eyes are so important.

Paul writes to the Colossians. He says, don't be greedy, for a greedy person is an idolater worshipping the things of this world. Now, I put this. This has been sitting here for 40 minutes. Some of you have already stopped thinking about it, some of you haven't.

And you haven't heard anything else I've said today. And I'm so sorry about this chair. I put this chair for a reason, because I wanted it to illustrate something, something for you to think about. This whole time we've been up here together is that it's just a single seat, no matter what I do. I mean, we could have some fun and try to see how many people we could sit in this seat.

It wouldn't be that enjoyable for me or you. But it's a single seater. It's meant to be one. And I can tell you right now, your life, no matter how much you want it to be, is a single seater. Just a one seater.

And a lot of us, we like that seat. It's comfy. We're in control. Here's the bad thing. We're not in control.

I can sit there, I can try to drive, but I keep finding out I don't know where I'm going. I don't understand these directions. And this thing drives crazy. The accelerator's not where it's supposed to be. I try to hit the brakes.

God, I'M hitting the brakes. No brakes. Brake lines are out.

That seat's not designed for me. It's definitely not designed for mammon. It's not designed for creation. It's designed for the king. There's only one seater in your life.

Picture this for a second. Who is sitting in that seat? Is it little old Jonathan sitting in that seat? Like, is it little old you?

They say, oh, you know, my life is all about my family. That sounds really chivalrous. That sounds good. It's wrong. I'm sorry.

It is. God did not make you to be a husband or a father or a wife. He made you for himself and he's going to make you an incredible husband and wife. When you finally say God, you sit there.

But when you put honey there, when you put the three, four, five kids, you know, some of y' all are getting, getting after it. You put those kids there, they don't even sit there. Well, trying to get a kid to sit still is hard enough itself. You put four of them in that seat, they don't fit. Most of the time, you're gonna feel like, man, I don't know what I'm doing.

At times I think I need to sign them up for everything. I want them to be well rounded. At times I think I just need to do everything. I don't want them to miss anything. I have like, parent, parental, fomo, church.

I got news for you. That isn't it. What happens is when I put God there, he says, okay, son, I gave you those kids. I got some good news. I care about them more than you do.

Way more. I died for them. I love them so much.

Who's on the throne? It only fits one. And here's this crazy thing. The God that you trust to provide, the God that you trust to provide is the God you truly serve. The God that's in this seat is the one.

It might be a person, it might be something you're trying to achieve, but if it's anything less than God, the rest of it is going to be a failure. Who or what gets the best of your time, energy, attention? Are you using God? Are you using him to serve your goals? As Achan put it as a bell hop, Ring, ring, ring.

God, I need you again. That's not how God rolls. That's pretty offensive to him. He's like, good luck. I did everything for you.

That's how you want this to be? He'll let us wander until we go. Okay. God, you're a lot more than a bellhop. I'm a mess.

This might be a good opportunity to take a Sabbath seriously. This is going to sound really foreign to you, but all the research I did this week, this was a way to get started for a people studying the topic. You want to know what it means to serve God and not money? Take a break.

I don't think many of us know how to rest at all. We don't know how to do it. We think it means sitting around in our PJs all day. That's not necessarily rest. It could be, maybe it may be that you spend the whole day saying, alright, I'm not working today.

God, I'm not going to fill my schedule with kids today. God, today it's me and you. What is a Sabbath? It's a day spent with God. Where do you want to go?

What do you want to do?

Maybe I actually get. Maybe I actually take a shower. I thought rest was about just laying around, being comfy. No, maybe I shower and go to like a park or something and just hang out, maybe feed some ducks or something weird. Like I'm crazy, you know, if you feed ducks a lot.

I didn't mean that personally. Like if you're alone somewhere feeding ducks, let that go. Pretend I didn't say that. Maybe that's what you do though. You go do something, you and God, and say, all right, what are we up to?

What are we talking about? Let's talk. I'm just gonna take the word of God. I'm gonna take a shower. I might even take.

I might take a couple coffee with me. We're gonna spend the day together that Sabbath. And some of you are like, man, I don't know how to do that. I know, do it, do it anyway. I want to break this problem I have of having two masters, because really I only have one.

And it's not God. I want to break this. I'm going to fast. I'm going to take a Sabbath. I'm going to recommit to things that I thought I needed to back away from areas where I'm serving my community or my church or my family.

And I'm going to find a way to do it with joy rather than reluctance.

Who's getting the best of your time, energy and attention? That's who's sitting here. Friends, Christ has called us to a better way of life, an eternal way, one that lasts by the power of the Holy Spirit. I pray that we can realign our hearts, refocus our vision and recommit our hands, our service to God. Let's Pray now.

Heavenly Father, we thank you so much that first of all, you are a God who loves us and gave everything for us. The things you have called us to do are pale in comparison to what you've done for us. Yes, you want our whole heart. Yes, you want our eyes to be focused on you. Yes, you want our service.

That's all true, but in comparison, it's an easy check to sign. You paid the ultimate price on the cross so that I could be free, so that I could live eternal, that I don't have to live in fear. You did all that and I couldn't even touch it. There was nothing I could do about that.

God, I thank you for who you are. I thank you that you show what it means to be generous long before you ever call us to it. That your Bible is description of a generous God. And all you're asking us to do is hey, come on, follow me. Deny yourself, Take up your cross and follow me.

Not asking you to blaze your own trail, friend, I'm asking you to walk behind me. I'm leading you on the path of purpose, of peace, of joy, of open handed generosity. Because this is who I am and I want you to be like me. Lord Jesus, I thank you for who you are. I recognize that someone might have come in here today and they've never said yes to Jesus.

This whole idea sounds fascinating, but the power behind being focused on Christ and being generous with our hearts, being devoted to him. The very power in that comes by faith, by salvation. And some of you today, maybe you've come in here and you recognize I'm not there, that's not who I am. I want to give you an opportunity today. This isn't some kind of like I've got to wait for a magical moment.

The Lord is calling you into faith, into salvation. He has already given it and he's waiting to see if you'll say, I believe, I receive it. It's already been offered. The question is, will you open it? This is an opportunity to do that.

Right now. You don't have to wait if the Lord is calling you to himself. The Bible says if we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in our heart that God raised him from the dead, we will be saved. He has given you a free gift. Will you open it?

If that's you today, pray simply with me. This Jesus. I believe you are Lord of my life. Jesus, I believe that you died on the cross for my sin.

I'm so relieved to say that I believe that you've already taken care of my guilt and my shame. It is paid for. And God, I believe that you raised Jesus from the dead. I don't have to fear death anymore. I don't have to fear what's next.

You've already told me a lot about what's next and it sounds really good. Lord Jesus, I'm thankful that you paid all of this for me so that I could be free. I'm asking you now, Lord Jesus, that you would guide me. Help me to live open handed as you do. Help me to follow you.

Help me to know what it means to set my eyes on you and be sincere and single minded towards you. Dear friend, if you prayed that prayer with me just now, welcome to the family of God. We are all children of God. That's what we are. Beyond all these other purposes, what we are at our base is child, a son and daughter of the King.

And we're praying right along with you. Lord Jesus, help us to follow you closely, that we will be generous, we will be sincere, that people will know us by our sincere devotion and love to you and that our hands won't get droopy, we won't get tired, we won't weary because we're serving a holy God rather than the world. Money. Whatever mammon is in my life, God help all of us in this room to continue every single day. Put you again on that throne.

We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.


You're caught up!

Here's a random sermon from the archives...

Growing Up Together

August 25, 2019 ·
Ephesians 4:11-16