Matthew 6:19-24 Where Do You Hold Your Treasure?

Go ahead and turn to Matthew chapter 6, starting at verse 19. We're just going to be looking at five verses today, and we'll slowly walk our way through these. 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 where your treasure is, your heart will be also. The eye is the lamp of the body, so if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money." So, let's pray.

Father, we come before you today, and as we talk about money, as we talk about treasure, as we talk about finances, Father, give us ears to hear what you have to say. Give us a kingdom perspective on the resources that are entrusted to us, and Father, I pray that we would come away with a healthy relationship not only to money but more importantly to you. And Father, that things would be in the right priority and the right perspective when it comes to this area of our lives. And Father, we ask all of this today in Jesus' name, Amen.

So, you know, you come to church, and you're talking about money, and some people go, "Oh, good grief. Talking about money." But let's talk about money for a minute. So, $20 bill—currency. For some of you, you've placed a meaning on money. Some of you understand it's just a tool. For others, though, it's security; it's freedom. There's a lot of words that would get attached to money. When I ask business people, "What does money mean to you?" Security and freedom are generally the two things that are thrown out.

Here's the thing about the meaning you assign to money: generally, it's misplaced, and generally, it's unhealthy. If it's nothing more than a tool, you have to examine why have I associated that meaning to money. So what happens in most people's lives is if we have a lot of this, we feel pretty comfortable and good; if we don't have much of this, we get stressed out, and that's never the role that resource was meant to play in your life. It is never meant to dictate how you feel about the world. What Jesus is going to teach us here is how to be content.

See, here's the real challenge with money: if you study our economy, a hundred dollars in 1900 had the same buying power as three dollars and sixty-four cents in 2010, right? So you can gain all the twenty dollars you want, but as time goes on, those twenty dollars become worth less and less because you're on a monetary system. And the reason I'm educating you for a minute is this will make more sense: you're on a floating dollar monetary system; there's nothing backing it. So when the government needs more money, they kick on the printing press, and the more of these in circulation, the less valuable they become. Makes sense?

This is what Jesus is really getting into: we're putting our trust in things that have no lasting value. If you actually study the American monetary system, it's been wiped out twice; we're on our third run with the Federal Reserve. Monetary systems were never meant to be a permanent thing.

Here's another thought for you: a couple of studies—a lot of people say, "You know, if I could only win the lottery, I'd be doing great." Now, years ago in my business life, I was a financial advisor. One of my clients was a lottery winner, and he many times told me it was the worst day of his life. I said, "Why is that?" He says, "Because then all of a sudden, I had to worry about it. When I didn't have a lot of money, I didn't have to worry about that. I started making friends I didn't know that I ever had. I had relatives I hadn't heard from for years. This started showing up. Everybody wanted to take from me what I had," and he said, "It's the worst day of my life."

Here's a real statistic for you: lottery winners are more likely to declare bankruptcy within three to five years than the average American. You go, "Okay, well, that's lottery winners." Alright, let's take professional athletes. Their numbers aren't very stellar either. This came from Sports Illustrated, an article in 2012: 78% of former NFL players are bankrupt or under financial stress after having been retired for two years. 60% of former NBA players are broke within five years of retirement. Now, fortunately, the baseball guys came through; they file for bankruptcy at a rate of four times the national average within five years of retiring. Hmm, surprising, right? And it's not an indictment on the profession; what it is, is the focus is in the wrong place.