Who Do You Love
Matthew 6:19-24
We have been walking through Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount together over the past several weeks. We took a break for Palm Sunday and Easter. We last talked about prayer and the Lord’s Prayer. I want to say a quick word about fasting before we get into today’s text.
Jesus is echoing some of the same things he said about prayer. Jesus is not an opponent of fasting. It was a sacrifice of oneself to God. Jesus was saying again that this practice is good but if you are doing it so that everyone else sees what you are doing; you are doing it for the wrong reasons. This is between you and God. If you are fasting so others see you as holy then you are doing it for the wrong reasons. When you do this with the right heart, God sees and he will reward your worship of him.
That brings us to the text for this week. Does anybody know what the most mentioned topic in the Bible is? Money. Does anybody know how many times it is mentioned? Different sources gave me different answers but anywhere from 800 to over 2300 times. So how important is money to God? Evidently quite important since the second most talked about topic is love and it is mentioned around 300 times.
Money or possessions are a major part of our daily lives. Think about it. Most of us wake up in a bed that we own in a house that we pay for in one way or another. We put on clothes that we have purchase and eat food that we have bought and dishes again that we own. We get in our cars and pay for gas to get to school or work. The focus is to earn money to pay to get through life. God knew that much or our existence would focus around money. This is not necessarily a bad thing but we must recognize that money is a huge part of our lives.
So let’s read what Jesus has to say about it in Matthew 6:19-24.
I want you to know right away that this is not a message asking for money. I know that for many that topic is a big turn-off in churches. This is not intended to be that. I want to cover what God has to say about money. Is it evil? Should we have money? Is wealth okay or should we give away everything we have? I have also realized that I am not going to answer all your questions in one message; in fact you may have more questions than answers when I’m done. Good. Wrestle with them and ask God to clarify them. This is a topic that I need to come back and preach on again in a small series of its own.
I also want to let you know that this is such a hard topic to talk about. There are competing views of wealth on money in our Western society. There are competing views in the church worldwide. You have one side that says we should sell all we have and live in poverty and then way over on the other side you have those who say if you want something nice then all you have to do is give to God (or their church/cause) and he will then give you the desire of your heart. Can capitalism coexist with the church? This is definitely a struggle in our society today.
So what is Jesus getting at as we hear him speaking in the scriptures today? As we begin Jesus is say to not store up treasures on earth. While I think the main focus of this passage today can be put on money I think that we can widen this topic with the word treasures. What are our treasures? Money is definitely one of those. What are our other treasures? Our stuff, our possessions are also very much our treasures.
First you need to understand how wealth was measured in bible times. One of the measures of wealth was clothing. In the Old Testament, 2 Kings 5 Naaman is healed of leprosy. He tries give Elisha a gift for healing him but Elisha refuses. His servant Gehazi however runs after Naaman to collect on it. Naaman give him two talents of silver and two sets of clothing. So clothing would have been lumped into the “treasures” on earth. Being made of cotton they could literally be eaten by moths. So if you had all kinds of clothing that you were not wearing but you were storing, moths could get in there and eat holes into all of them and then what are you left with, nothing.
Rust too was a common problem with many of the possessions of many in bible times. We would also read many times that people would bury their treasures in the ground or hide them in a wall so thieves would come and dig up yards or break down walls in search of hidden possessions. Again, if these things were taken what would you be left with, nothing.
It was not a sin to have possessions. We see many instances in the bible where followers of God were wealthy and successful. Some of them managed that wealth well and others not so good. The problem is not the treasures themselves but the faith in those things.
Like I stated earlier, money is a part of our everyday lives. There is a certain amount of it that it takes to live and so we must do our best to go out and earn and honest wage. Some are able to earn considerably more than others. A doctor is going to make considerably more than someone who is working as a hired hand. One has put in much more time and money in their education and therefore is rewarded financially for that. A CEO of a company is going to make more than the workers in his company. They often again have invested more. It doesn’t always seem fair but this is the way the system works and this is not where the problem is. The problem for the CEO or the laborer is what they are doing with what they are making.
Contrary to what some preachers will say, the Bible does not promise you wealth at least in terms of money or the way we think of wealth. Jeremiah 29:11 says, “I know the plans I have prepared for you declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
We look at that and we turn prosper in wealth. A great example of this is Job. In his lifetime Job experienced great wealth. In fact in Job 1 it says that he was the greatest man among all the people of the East. People would have attributed his wealth to his favor with God, because he followed God he was a rich man.
Job then loses it all. His wealth is taken from him as well as his family. Conversely, those around him thought his misfortune was because he had angered God. We know that this is not true because the Lord was allowing Satan to test Job to see if he would remain faithful.
At the end of Job we do see that the Lord does restore his wealth. Job 42:10, “After Job had prayed for his friends, the Lord made him prosperous again and gave him twice as much as he had before.” We can see here that God does not hate wealth. He made Job prosperous.
The danger we get into is that we think that if we are Christians and follow God’s Word as Job did then God will make us rich as well. This is not our decision however, it is God’s. Why is it that we think that God owes us something?
We still think this way today. Yes, God choses to bless some with wealth but that doesn’t mean that if you don’t have money that God has got it out for you. Jesus tells the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Lazarus was a beggar and he is the one in heaven and not the rich man and so money has no bearing on your status with God or your ticket into heaven.
All too often our focus in life becomes on making money so that we can fulfill our earthly desires we are then losing our focus of God. Jesus is telling the people that if your focus is to accumulate all of these things or treasures they will do you no good because they are not eternal treasures. They are just temporary. They can be taken away at a moment’s notice as Job’s was. If you have spent all your effort on getting these things when they are gone you are left with nothing but emptiness.
Job had the Lord. His life obviously was not based on his wealth but was based on God. When it was all taken away from him, even though he didn’t understand why, he still had God and he does not turn from God when his wealth is taken.
Here is how flawed we can be though. My first car was a ’79 Camaro. It was blue with a 350. It has power windows and T-tops. It has just enough chrome in all the right places. For those of you who know Mike VanZant it was his Camaro. I loved that car and poured lots of time and care into that car. I sold it when Missi and I got married and I always said that one of my dreams was too own that car again or one like it. For what gain is that? Shouldn’t my dream be to help those who are less fortunate? That should be on the top of my list and if God choses to bless me with that car again someday well then cool but you see how quickly we serve the wrong master.
If God chose to take away all your earthly possessions what would you be left with? After all, it was all God’s to start with. You might think that you earned it but that is where your thinking is flawed. The whole earth and everything in it is the Lord’s. What we have is still God’s. He house you own was bought with money that God allowed you to have from the job that God prepared for you with the gifts that God gave you. It is all the Lord’s.
It all comes down to a matter of the heart. Last week as Nicodemus I told you when Jesus spoke to him the famous words of John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave…..” When we love God we give. God love and so he gave. He gave sacrificially. He gave his only son. If we are to model our lives after God, if we love him then we also should give and give sacrificially.
The Pharisees were great at giving 10% of what they had because that was the law and yet Jesus rebuked them. Why? Because Jesus looks past the percent and into the heart. That is why Jesus doesn’t give a required amount for one to give. Giving is to be from the heart. If the offering plate comes by and you throw in your money out of obligation, well thank you for your act of charity. Glad we can help you with your tax write off. When it comes from the heart it is worship.
That is why we have an offering during our worship. If giving wasn’t worship you we would ask you to just mail your checks in but it is worship. Giving to the Lord out of the gratitude of our hearts is worship to the Lord. Are you excited when you give or is it painful like waiting for a dentist to extract a tooth?
When you give to the Lord for his cause you are storing up treasures in heaven. Where would you rather make your deposits? Here on earth to prepare for your retirement or in heaven to prepare for your eternity.
I know the question your thinking is then should we not save, should we not think of the future. No, 1 Timothy 5:8 states, “If anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” Remember though that this is God’s. Your investment is not the focus. When you save and invest wisely it will free up more of your time and your income to in turn give to God. Where is your heart? Are you working for God and giving it all to him?
God in the Old Testament and Jesus in the New command us to take care of the poor. Wealth is a gift from God and is to be used for his service and not ours. A theme throughout the bible is caring for the poor.
When you are poor you have no voice. Those with money possess all the power and control. The poor are limited as to what they can do and so they rely upon those who have wealth to help them. This doesn’t mean that they are not working or doing whatever they can. Sometimes they just simply aren’t able to do what is required. .
I am saying though that God has always wanted us to help the poor. In my commentary which is a few years old but I’m guessing the numbers have not changed very much. It stated that 68% of the world’s income is generated by those who claim to be followers of Christ. 3% of that goes to the church and a fraction of that to world missions.
Quite simply we just can’t serve two masters. We must choose to serve God. If you are still asking the question of how much should I give, how much is required, you are still asking the wrong question. The question is how much I can give, what is the Lord asking for, how can I bless his kingdom? Let God fill in the rest.
