Matthew 6:19-24

What do you think heaven will be like?  Do you ever let your imagination sort of drift into those possibilities?  Scripture does give us glimpses; descriptions and pictures of it that can help us and I feel like we should read them, in part to let ourselves get caught up in the hope of eternity with Christ.  You can read about that in Revelation 21, 22.

 Our passage is  the part where Jesus teaches about money in the Sermon on the Mount.  It calls us to consider where we are storing up our hope and security and challenges us to consider who we are really serving.

Transcript

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What do you think heaven will be like? Do you ever let your imagination wander off into that space where you just start thinking about all of the different possibilities? You know, Scripture does give us glimpses, pictures and descriptions of what the new heavens and earth will be like. And I think we're supposed to read those, in part, to let ourselves get caught up in the hope and the dream of what it means to have this hope of glory with Jesus. If you'd like, you can read about those in Revelation chapter 21 and 22. On that genuinely happy note, welcome to Meet Me in the Word. I am so glad that you've joined us today. Our passage is Matthew chapter six, verses nineteen through twenty-four. And it's the part where Jesus teaches about money in his Sermon on the Mount. So go ahead and open up your copy of the scriptures to Matthew six verses nineteen through twenty-four, and we'll listen to the good teacher. And hopefully I won't get in the way too much. But before we do that, let's pray. Jesus, thank you so much for who you are and the way that you lead us. God, thank you that you have given us hope for today and for tomorrow. God, meet with us. We're here to meet with you. Amen. All right, let's read this together. Jesus is teaching, and he 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 where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The eye is the lamp of the body, so if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness? No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. Let's just take a moment to pause and listen to what the Spirit is speaking to us. All right. Let's again, let's just kind of dive into this and make a few observations. This little passage has three pretty natural and distinct kind of moments along the way, and we'll just honor those as we go through it. The first one is verses 19 through 21. And I'd like to ask you this: what is your dream situation? You know, the things that we yearn for are the things that have captured our hearts. And I think Jesus has acknowledged that in the way that he's talking about this. Whatever we yearn, yearn for, yearn for, whatever we yearn for is going to occupy our mind in those moments when our mind isn't occupied. Does that make sense? And I think it's just one of those truths about life as a whole. And so he's challenging his listeners, including us, to think about where we're storing up treasures, where we're building up this hope for ourselves. For example, if your version of utopia for you, right, is to live in a particular neighborhood or or have a certain car that you get to drive, or, you know, the next cool piece of tech, whatever that is for you, that's what you're gonna likely be daydreaming about. And probably that's where you're also going to spend your money. That's gonna shape the way your budget works. Here's the thing every form of wealth can be taken from us, every single one. And that can happen in so many different ways. It can decay, it can just like lose, you know, interest along the way. All these different things can happen, and sometimes it's really sudden and we don't see it coming. Here's the thing, number two. Our lives only last a lifetime. And I know that a lifetime sounds like quite a lot, but if our goal is to build our own version of paradise on Earth by the time we reach that certain age, man, that's short-sighted on our part, isn't it? It's one of those things where we kind of lose perspective and we think about this life, this experience as all that there is. And when I stop and think about what I'm saying, I know that that can sound a little bit crazy because it doesn't match with our senses and and all of like kind of our day-to-day experience, but but we have this gift that's been given to us in the person of Jesus and in the scriptures and through Holy Spirit. And if we pay attention to all of that, it's right for us to yearn for something that's more than this life. So where are we storing up those treasures? What's your dream situation? Let's move on into verses twenty-two and twenty-three. And my question for you now is what has captured your gaze? This is that part where he talks about the eyes being the lamp of the body. And if your eye is healthy, it's great, your body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. And I was thinking about this, you know, if we are entranced by things that lead us away from God, our lamp, right, our eyes, have dimmed and they've become unhealthy. I think that's really what Jesus is saying. And this saying, by the way, can feel like it's maybe a little out of place in its context. Jesus starts off by talking about storing up treasures in heaven, and then the last part that we'll get to in verse 24 is about, you know, who's your master? Is it God or is it money? But I actually think he's still talking about that same subject. He's talking about what's capturing our gaze, what's the apple of our eye, so to speak. If we're staring at treasures that will ultimately be consumed or destroyed or decayed, we're staring at death. I don't mean to be overly dramatic here, but it is something that is a unsustainable and b, it really does lead us away from God. If we're living a life that's devoted to the accumulation of wealth, then we're not living a life that's devoted to storing up treasures in heaven and to anticipating that connection and that relationship, that closeness with God that is ours in heaven. If, on the other hand, we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus and the hope that is ours through him, then we can have this hope of eternity even today. So do you ever daydream about heaven? Kind of coming back to that first question that we were discussing. And if you don't, then maybe you just haven't thought about it enough, maybe you haven't read enough about it, and I would encourage you to do so, and maybe you're just distraction distracted, distracted by the things of this world, because this world does present a lot of shiny objects to us, and we're all perfectly capable of getting distracted by any of those things. And then finally we get to verse 24. The key question here is who are you serving, right? Who are you are you serving? Jesus says no one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You can't serve God and money. Here's the reality. We all need money, right? We just do. It's not bad in and of itself. It makes our lives function, it makes our lives to a certain point enjoyable, that money can do all of those things. And if God's blessed you with a lot or the ability to earn a lot, thank him for that. Where it becomes a problem, and quite honestly, a massive problem, is if our happiness and our sense of sanity, our sense of feeling like we're okay, that we're gonna make it, that we're somehow all of that stuff is happening in us. If that's dependent on money, then then we've flipped its role in our lives. No longer is it a tool or a blessing or a gift to us. It's moved into that place of being master and maybe even an idol, something that has moved into the place of God. And Jesus acknowledges that that's one of the fundamental struggles of the human existence, and it has been since the very beginning. Do I have enough? And where am I finding my security? If our security is in anything other than Jesus, then that thing has probably become some form of an idol in our lives, and we're serving not Jesus. We're serving some version of self, some other version of security. Jesus says, you gotta make a choice, and that choice is an important an important one for us to make. And honestly, it's one of those things that we need to choose regularly, maybe even daily, where we just wake up in the morning going, you know what? Am I putting my hope in God or am I putting my hope in the stuff that I have around me or the stuff that I hope to have around me? I'd like to leave you with two kind of just basic things to consider in reflection. The first one is I'm inviting you to pray about your your home finances or your home budget. And I get it, budgets are by nature practical. You may not even have a budget, and if you don't, that's okay. That's probably for a you know a different conversation. I do think that they're helpful for us. But just pray about your own financial situation. And does it reflect? Does your bank account, like when you look at your statement, does it reflect God? Does it reflect somebody who's storing up treasures in heaven or looking to gain treasures here on earth? And the second part is another to-do. So I've given you two things to do. I'm so sorry about that. Come up with one way that you can store up treasure in heaven today. Okay, whatever time of the day that this is, so that might inform what kind of a thing it is that you're going to do. It might be very, very simple and short, but come up with one way that you can store up treasure in heaven today, and then do that thing. Let me pray for us. Jesus in heaven, thank you that you you not only taught us about things like prayer and giving and fasting and and all of those heart issues, but you you talked candidly to your people and to us about things like money. And so, God, we want all of our lives to be surrendered to you, Lord, so that we can enjoy um your presence in our lives, that our lives would be filled with the goodness of you. God, we love you. Amen.