Next Sunday is the Super Bowl with the Kansas City Chiefs playing for the first time in over 50 years! I’m looking forward to a great game, but also to some great commercials like this Chevy commercial shown during Super Bowl 46 in 2012 (show Chevy Happy Grad: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Np0giKknx0U)
In it, the parents of a high school graduate blindfold him and take him outside to see the gift they had given him for graduation. It’s a mini refrigerator, but all he sees is a yellow Chevy sportscar sitting in the street behind the refrigerator. The graduate thinks his parents got him a new car for graduation, and he gets all excited about it, until the real owner of the car gets in and drives it away.
The commercial ends with the graduate yelling, “Hey, he stole my car!”
Some people have the same reaction to money, which doesn’t belong to them anyway. The Bible says, “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it” (Psalm 24:1, NIV). That includes your money.
So what does God want you to do with HIS money? What does God want you to do with the resources He has assigned you to manage on His behalf? Well, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Matthew 6, Matthew 6, where Jesus tells us what to do with the money God has entrusted to you.
Matthew 6:19-20 “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. (ESV)
Jesus is very clear here. He says, first of all...
STORE GOD’S MONEY IN THE RIGHT PLACE.
Put God’s money in heaven, not on earth. Invest His resources in in heavenly ventures, not earthy ones.
Don’t hoard what God gives to you, because hoarded wealth is ruined wealth. Moth, rust, and thieves will take it all away. For some people, their wealth is in their fancy clothes, but those clothes are susceptible to moths. For other people their wealth is in their crops. It’s the corn and the grain they have stored away in big silos, but those crops are susceptible to worms, rats, and mice. The word for “rust” literally means “eating away,” which describes the vermin that pollute and devour those crops. Then there are those whose wealth is in their gold coins, which they store in a safe in their own homes. But as secure as that sounds, that wealth is susceptible to thieves who “break in and steal.” Literally, they “dig through” and take the coins. You see, in Jesus’ day, many people built their houses with nothing stronger than baked clay, which made it easy for burglars to dig through the outer wall and take whatever valuables they find.
Now, whether your wealth is in any of these things, Jesus point is clear. Wealth stored anywhere on earth is temporary – here today and gone tomorrow.
Art experts estimate that Pablo Picasso produced about 13,500 paintings or designs, 100,000 prints or engravings, 34,000 book illustrations, and 300 sculptures or ceramics. However, one painting stands out among the rest.
The painting is titled The Dream, and Picasso completed it in 1932. In 1997, at an art auction at Christie's in New York City, Steve Wynn purchased the painting for 47 million dollars. Then, less than a decade later, in 2006, he completed a deal to sell the painting for $139 million – triple what he paid for it. The transaction would have set a record for the sale of a piece of art.
It WOULD have, but just after completing the deal, Wynn, who was standing close to the painting, turned and inadvertently put his elbow through the Picasso, leaving a six-inch hole in the middle of the masterpiece. The effect on the sale price was immediate. Even more quickly than it had come, the record-breaking $139 million sale evaporated. (“Vegas Tycoon Pokes Hole in a Picasso,” CBSnews.com, 10-18-06; www.PreachingToday.com)
“Easy come, easy go” – and so it is with all wealth stored anywhere on this earth. It is only temporary.
Billionaire H. Ross Perot once put it this way: “Guys, just remember, if you get real lucky, if you make a lot of money, if you go out and buy a lot of stuff—it's gonna break. You got your biggest, fanciest mansion in the world. It has air conditioning. It's got a pool. Just think of all the pumps that are going to go out. Or go to a yacht basin any place in the world. Nobody is smiling, and I'll tell you why. Something broke that morning. The generator's out; the microwave oven doesn't work... Things just don't mean happiness." (Jim Long, Wheaton, Illinois, Leadership, Vol. 11, no. 2; www.PreachingToday.com)
So don’t hoard what God gives you. Don’t store it on this earth.
Instead, store it in heaven by giving it away. Be generous and share God’s money with those in need.
In Luke 13, Jesus says, “Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail...” (Lk. 13:33-34).
Jesus makes it very clear. The way to store your treasure in heaven, and keep it forever, is to give it to the needy. In fact, that’s how Jesus’ Jewish audience understood the phrase, “treasures in heaven.”
According to William Barclay, “They said that the deeds of kindness which people did upon earth became their treasure in heaven.”
They also had a famous story about king Monobaz, who became a convert to Judaism. Later, he distributed all his treasures to the poor in a year of famine. His brothers scolded him, saying, “Your fathers gathered treasures, and added to those of their fathers, but you have dispersed yours and theirs.”
The king replied, “My fathers gathered treasures for below; I have gathered treasures for above... My fathers gathered treasures of money; I have gathered treasures in souls... My fathers gathered treasures in this world; I have gathered treasures for the world to come.” (William Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew, Vol.1)
Gather treasures for the world to come by giving it a way. Don’t think about the short-term gains; think long-term!
Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, has made millions with his long-term approach to investment. In his first letter to investors in 1997, he wrote something which he repeats every year in a letter to investors. He said, “We will continue to make investment decisions in light of long-term market leadership considerations rather than short-term profitability considerations or short-term Wall Street reactions.” (Will Mancini and Michael Bird, God Dreams, B&H Publishers, 2016, page 31; www.PreachingToday.com)
Jeff Bezos is thinking decades ahead, but you can do even better than him by thinking further ahead – like into eternity!
Last year (2019), Jermaine Bell was planning to spend his seventh birthday on a trip to Disney World, a trip for which he’d been saving for quite a while. But as Hurricane Dorian forced people to evacuate their homes, Bell wanted to help.
He enlisted the help of his grandmother Aretha Grant and used his birthday money – about $500 – to buy hot dogs, chips, and bottled water for those who were evacuating their homes. He then made homemade signs and stood with them along the highway to get the attention of those who needed help. Bell said, “The people that are traveling to go to places, I wanted them to have some food to eat, so they can enjoy the ride to the place that they’re going to stay at. I wanted to be generous and live to give.”
News of the big-hearted six-year-old spread quickly and eventually caught the attention of officials at Disney. They surprised Bell at his mother’s home in Jacksonville with a special Simba toy and a set of VIP passes so that he and several family members could enjoy a Disney vacation after all. (“South Carolina boy gives up Disney birthday trip to feed Dorian evacuees,” WTBW.com, 9-5-19; www.PreachingToday.com)
That little boy laid up treasure in heaven, lasting treasure! His trip to Disneyland would have brought temporary pleasure, but His generous heart will stick with him forever!
So don’t hoard what God gives you; give it away, because it puts your heart in the right place. It sets your interests on the important things, the things of heaven and the things that last forever.
Matthew 6:21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (ESV)
Notice, Jesus did NOT say your money follows your heart, no! He said your heart follows your money.
Randy Alcorn put it this way: “Suppose you buy shares of General Motors. What happens? You suddenly develop interest in GM. You check the financial pages. You see a magazine article about GM and read every word, even though a month ago you would have passed right over it. Suppose you're giving to help African children with AIDS. When you see an article on the subject, you're hooked. If you're sending money to plant churches in India and an earthquake hits India, you watch the news and fervently pray …
“Do you wish you cared more about eternal things? Then reallocate some of your money, maybe most of your money, from temporal things to eternal things. Put your resources, your assets, your money and possessions, your time and talents and energies into the things of God. Watch what happens. As surely as the compass needle follows north, your heart will follow your treasure. Money leads; hearts follow.” (Randy Alcorn; “Where's Your Heart?” Eternal Perspectives Ministry blog, 5-11-16; www.PreachingToday.com)
So don’t hoard God’s money; give it away! Store it in the right place. Store it in heaven. But in order to do that, you have to...
SEE GOD’S MONEY WITH THE RIGHT PERSPECTIVE.
Be clear in your understanding of material wealth. Appreciate the real value of things, and don’t let money distort your vision. Jesus said in verse 22...
Matthew 6:22-23 “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! (ESV)
The eye is like a window to the body. If the eye is clear, then the whole body is full of light. But if the eye is clouded, then the whole body is dark.
Well, in the context, hoarding material wealth clouds the window, but generosity clears the window. When Jesus says, “If the eye is healthy” (verse 22), He uses a word that also means “generous.” In other words, Jesus says in verse 22, “If the eye is generous, your whole body will be full of light.” That is to say, your entire being is enlightened.
In the 18th Century, Samuel Hearne organized an expedition to the Arctic Ocean up the Coppermine River in Canada. However, just a few days after they started their expedition, a party of Indians stole most of their supplies. Samuel Hearne’s response? He wrote in his journal, “The weight of our baggage being so much lightened, our next day's journey was more swift and pleasant.” (Lloyd C. Douglas, The Living Faith; www.PreachingToday.com)
Samuel Hearne’s vision was clear! He wanted to reach the Arctic Ocean, not hoard his stuff.
Tell me. What is your vision? Is it to glorify God? Is it to see more people come to love Him as you do? Is it to see His Kingdom expanded? Is it to make disciples of Christ? Or is it to accumulate stuff for your own comfort?
Please, don’t lose sight of why God saved you and put you here on this earth. Be generous with the resources God has entrusted to you, so that the window to your body remains clear.
Otherwise, your hoarding will cloud the window. It will obscure your vision and bring darkness into your life, a very great darkness Jesus declared.
In verse 23, when Jesus says, “If your eye is bad,” he uses a phrase familiar to his Jewish audience. They understood it to describe stingy people. In Proverbs 23:6, the Hebrew says, “Don’t eat with people whose eye is bad.” However, the Greek translation of the Old Testament in Jesus’ day translated that phrase, “Don’t eat with people who are stingy.” So to have a bad eye is to be stingy. And when a person is stingy or begrudging, Jesus says, “How great is the darkness” in their entire being.
Chuck Bentley, CEO of Crown Financial Ministries, writes, “Living only to acquire more is a foolish proposition.”
Then he tells the story of a dear friend's father, who raised his family in a modest home and worked diligently to provide for his family. Over the years, he worked long days and most evenings. His business required him to have appointments with potential clients after most people had finished their workday.
Early in the father's career, he purchased a small lot overlooking a beautiful lake. To avoid extravagance, he moved a simple mobile home on the lot and had a deck installed around it so he could sit and watch the sunset. The family spent most weekends together at the lake as the children were growing up.
Over the years, the small business grew and so did the demands on his time. He spent less time with the family as mergers and acquisitions increased the size of the company. The children began to consider him distant and uninvolved in their lives. Still, he continued his relentless accumulation of more and more assets.
Ultimately, his company was acquired by a major company. This landed his picture on the front page of The Wall Street Journal, but then disaster struck. He had traveled so very far up the ladder of financial success only to learn shortly thereafter that he had a rare disease that would take his life in a matter of weeks.
Before the man died, he uttered heartfelt words summarizing the vanity of all that he had acquired. “I was happiest when sitting on the deck outside the trailer watching the sun set on the lake. I never needed anything more than that.” (Chuck Bentley, The Root of Riches, FORIAM Publishers, 2011, Pages 74-75; www. PreachingToday.com)
How great is the darkness of those who live only to acquire more and more wealth.
In 2010 The New Yorker magazine summarized the findings of an earlier study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. The researchers assembled three groups of people—major lottery winners, paralyzed accident victims, and a control group of random individuals—and asked them a battery of questions about their present, past, and future happiness.
Here's what the researchers found:
The lottery group rated winning as a highly positive experience and the accident group ranked victimhood as a negative one. Clearly, the winners realized that they'd been fortunate.
But this only made the subsequent results more puzzling. Shockingly, the lottery winners took significantly less pleasure in daily activities—including buying clothes—than the members of the other two groups.
You read that correctly. The lottery winners were no happier than the random control group, and both the control group and the paraplegic and quadriplegic accident victims expressed more happiness in undertaking life's daily activities than the recently rich. (Ted Scofield, “Everybody Else's Biggest Problem: Don't Worry, Buy Happy,” Mockingbird blog, 1-12-16; www.PreachingToday.com)
Money never made anybody happy, so it’s foolish to hoard it. Instead, be generous and give away as much as you can. In that way, you store God’s money in the right place; you see God’s money with the right perspective; so that you...
SERVE THE RIGHT POWER.
You submit to the right master. You obey the right lord. Jesus said in verse 24...
Matthew 6:24 “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. (ESV)
In the Greek, the word is “mammon,” which comes from a root word that means to entrust. According to Barclay, the word speaks of “that which was entrusted to a banker. Mamon was the wealth which was entrusted to another person for safe keeping. [However], as the years went on, mamon came to mean not that which is entrusted, but that in which people put their trust” (William Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew, Vol.1).
How many people put their trust in money? They look to their money to provide a sense of security and significance, rather than God. But when people put their trust in money, it becomes not their support but their god; it ruthlessly controls them.
How about you? Jesus gives you a choice this morning. You can trust and serve money, or you can trust and serve God, but you cannot do both.
Just a few years ago (2017), Burger King opened its first restaurant in Belgium. They did it by launching an online publicity campaign that asked users "Who's the King?" The ad used a cartoon version of the real Belgian king, King Phillipe, and the fictional Burger King. “Two kings, one single crown, who shall reign?” the website asked.
Well, as you can imagine, the Belgian royal family was not happy about it at all. A spokesperson for the family said, “Since it is for commercial purposes, we would not have given our authorization.”
However, the royal family does agree with Burger King on at least one point: there can be only one king. (Nina Golgowski, “Burger King's 'Who Is The King?' Vote Reportedly Angers Belgian Royal,” Huff Post, 5-28-2017; www.PreachingToday.com)
That’s the point Jesus is making here: There can only be one king.
So what will it be for you? I urge you. Put your trust in Christ and live to serve Him. Trust the One who loved you enough to die for you and let Him control your life. For if you let money control your life, it will destroy you. But if you let Jesus control your life, He will deliver you; He will give you the eternal, abundant life, for which you truly seek.
So store God’s money in the right place; see God’s money with the right perspective; and serve the right power. Trust Christ with your life and use God’s money to benefit others.
I like the way Tom Brokaw put it years ago. He said: It's easy to make a buck. It's a lot tougher to make a difference. (Tom Brokaw, Marriage Partnership, Vol. 12, no. 2; www.PreachingToday.com)
My dear friends, in dependence upon Christ, let’s work more to make a difference in people’s lives than to make a buck.
