Perspectives on Possessions
Matthew 6:19-24
INTRODUCTION
A. Kung San are a foraging people of the Kalahari Desert in Southern Africa.
1. They were isolated from outside forces for thousands of years.
2. They were a hunting and gathering people who fit into their environment and had plenty of leisure time.
3. Used free time to cultivate fulfilling relationships.
4. Then came a social change.
5. Consumer items from the West (radios, pots, blankets, mirrors, alcohol, tobacco) came to them.
6. Started farming and herding, built better huts, and put fences around huts to keep goats from eating the grass roofs.
7. The number of huts increased and they began to space them farther apart.
8. Neighbors and family members began to grow farther apart physically and emotionally.
9. Doors of huts once faced inward toward their neighbors, but now they faced outward toward the animals.
10. South African army began to recruit them for soldiers.
11. Used their pay to buy more material things.
12. Drunkenness and violence began to characterize them and many were killed in Saturday night brawls.
13. Used to be the most peaceful but now the most violent.
14. They developed a wrong perspective about possessions.
B. Jesus begins to illustrate personal failures that can rob believers of victories.
1. Natural to be thing oriented.
2. Most of what we want is just that-wants not needs.
C. Religious Leaders were no different.
1. Jesus said they could not serve God and money-not serve two masters.
2. “The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. He said to them, ‘You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts. What is highly valued among men is detestable in God’s sight.’”
D. Wealth, health and prestige are not necessarily signs of God’s approval.
1. This is not a proper perspective on possessions.
2. Proverbs, “Do not weary yourself to gain wealth, cease from your consideration of it.” (Proverbs 23:4)
3. John Stott said, “Worldly ambition has a strong fascination for us. The spell of materialism is very hard to break.”
EARTHLY POSSESSIONS ARE TEMPORARY
A. The meaning of laying up treasures.
1. To hoard or stockpile.
2. A picture of wealth that is not being used.
3. Kept this way for the purpose of showing off or to create an environment of laziness.
B. Jesus is not saying that we should live in poverty.
1. Jesus did not specifically require all his followers to give up everything to follow him.
2. Both Testaments recognize the right of people to have things.
3. God wants us to enjoy what he blesses us with.
4. Bible, “Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.” (I Timothy 6:17)
C. What does the Bible say?
1. We are to work hard and follow good business principles.
2. We are to save for our children and provide for our families.
3. Nothing wrong with saving for the future, having enough to give to the poor or supporting the Lord’s work.
D. Still we must remember that possessions are temporary.
1. Jesus says they are subject to destruction by moth and rust.
2. Thieves can steal them from us.
3. In ancient times, a person’s wealth was often determined by their clothes and how much grain they had, but this could be destroyed or stolen.
4. Bible, “Cast but a glance at riches, and they are gone, for they will surely sprout wings and fly off to the sky like an eagle.” (Proverbs 23:5)
E. The example of Job.
1. Had a large family, much livestock and servants.
2. Bible, “He was the greatest man among all the people of the East.”
3. While his sons and daughters were partying, a messenger came with the news that the Sabeans had stolen his oxen and donkeys and killed his servants.
4. Fire from the sky had burned up his sheep and some more of his servants.
5. Chaldeans had captured his camels and killed more of his servants.
6. Wind had destroyed the house where his sons and daughters were partying and killed them all.
7. Tore his robe, shaved his head, fell to the ground and said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.” (Job 1:21)
F. Stock market crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression.
1. Time of economic failure when more than 15 million-1 out of 4, were unemployed.
2. People lost their homes, farms and money.
3. Businesses faced great losses.
4. Thousands of banks went bankrupt and closed.
5. Found out wealth was temporary.
OUR ATTITUDE ABOUT WEALTH SHOWS THE STATE OF OUR HEART
A. Jesus, “But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
B. Jesus, “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”
C. What does mammon mean?
1. Refers to material possessions and comes from a root word meaning “to entrust,” or “to place in someone’s keeping.”
2. Originally meant wealth entrusted to someone for safekeeping.
3. As time passed, it came to mean, “that in which a man trusts.”
D. Heart is not right when all our attention is on getting more.
1. Christ is our Lord not possessions.
2. Giving our allegiance to anything or anyone else shows we don’t have a proper perspective.
E. Two masters call on us to do opposite things.
1. One tells us to walk by faith, and the other to walk by sight.
2. One tells us to be humble while the others says be proud.
3. One says to keep our attention on things above and the others says to pay attention to what’s below.
4. One says to love light and the other says to love darkness.
5. John Calvin, “Where riches hold the dominion of the heart, God has lost His authority.”
OUR ATTITUDE ABOUT POSSESSIONS SHOWS OUR SPIRITUAL VISION
A. Jesus, “The lamp of the body is the eye; if therefore your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.”
B. The eye is an illustration of the heart.
1. The heart is what the individual is all about.
2. Clear eyes signify single-minded devotion to God (red eyes are painful and cause blurry vision).
3. Blurry eyes are crowded with material concerns and insensitive to spiritual things.
4. The bad eye represents one who selfishly indulges in material things.
C. The window is represented by the eye.
1. Clean windows can let light come in.
2. Limited light filters through dirty windows.
3. Attitude about possessions reflects our spirituality.
4. Bishop John Charles Ryle said, “Singleness of purpose is one great secret of spiritual prosperity.”
A PROPER ATTITUDE ABOUT POSSESSIONS LEADS TO A GENEROUS SPIRIT
A. Jesus, “So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light.”
B. Healthy.
1. Clear, simple or single.
2. Words closely related also carry the idea of liberality.
C. A healthy or clear eye is a generous eye.
1. Eye illustrates the heart, so we should have generous hearts.
2. This will happen if our attitude about possessions is correct.
3. Bible, “If it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously.” (Romans 12:8)
4. We must liberally share our money and possessions.
CONCLUSION
A. Earthly possessions are temporary, our attitude reflects the state of our heart and our spiritual vision and a proper attitude should lead to a generous spirit.
B. G. Campbell Morgan said, “You are to remember with the passion burning within you that you are not the child of to-day. You are not of the earth, you are more than dust; you are the child of tomorrow; you are of the eternities, you are the offspring of Deity…If you make your fortune on the earth…you have made a fortune, and stored it in a place where you cannot hold it. Make your fortune, but store it where it will greet you in the dawning of the new morning.”
C. Farmer who tells his wife of the cow who gave birth to two calves.
1. One was red and the other white.
2. Farmer said, “You know, I have been led of the Lord to dedicate one of the calves to Him. We will raise them together. Then when the time comes to sell them, we will keep the proceeds that come from one calf and we will give the proceeds that come from the other to the Lord’s work.”
3. Wife asked which one he would dedicate to the Lord, but he said they didn’t need to decide that now.
4. Several months later man enters kitchen looking sad.
5. Wife asked what was wrong and he said the Lord’s calf was dead.
6. The wife reminded that he had not yet decided which one was the Lord’s.
7. The farmer said, “Oh yes. I had always determined that it was to be the white one, and it is the white calf that has died.”
