Good morning. If you have your Bibles with you, please open up to Psalm 49:1. While you are looking that Psalm up, I have a music trivia question. Does anybody like country music? A lot of people. Has anybody ever heard of the country group called The Gatlin Brothers? More than I thought. They were a country group that was made up of three brothers, Steve, Rudy, and the most famous of all was Larry Gatlin. Larry Gatlin and the Gatlin brothers performed probably late 70s, early 80s. They were very popular. They had a number of number-one songs that made the country top list, including Houston, Broken Lady, and my all-time favorite All the Gold in California. In case you didn’t remember it, I put the lyrics up there on the screen. It says “All the gold in California is in a bank in the middle of Beverly Hills in somebody else’s name. If you are dreaming about California, it don’t matter at all where you play before, California is a brand new game.” Like most country songs, the message is quite simple. If you are thinking about going to California or anywhere to stake your claim on some wealth, fame, or fortune, you better think twice about it because that pot of gold that is out there is very difficult to get your hands on. It is very difficult to get your name up in lights. If you were to somehow reach that pot of gold, what you find out is all that glitters is not gold. That is really the point of the song. I thought since I have the lyrics up there and since so many of you know the song, I thought we could sing it together. Everybody ready? Nobody seems excited about that. I am not too excited about it either. But I thought what we could do is watch a video from YouTube seeing Larry Gatlin and the Gatlin Brothers perform this great song. (Video played here.)
I saw some of you tapping your feet and singing along with that. What the message is here is quite simple. If you are thinking about pursuing fame and fortune, you better think about it twice because it is going to cost you something. It may even cost your life, which is really the theme of Psalm 49. We are going to read through the entire Psalm. We have been spending the summer looking at various Psalms. We looked at about six of them. We talked about how the Psalms are classified in a number of ways. Praise Psalms. Psalms of lament, and we talked about Psalms of instruction. This Psalm today is actually a Psalm of instruction designed to teach us about something. Specifically designed to teach us that the pursuit of wealth purely for the sake of accumulation can lead to nothing but death. We are going to read through the entire Psalm starting with verse 1 and going all the way through verse 20. (Scripture read here.)
There is a lot of information in this Psalm. Too much really to cover today. But the central point of the Psalm is driven home by the very last line. The very last line that says “A man who has riches without understanding is like the beasts that perish.” In a nutshell what he is saying is that someone who pursues wealth just for the purpose of accumulating that wealth on earth to find a comfort in that wealth is going to end up like an animal. In other words, when the person dies and the grim reaper is standing there and says hello and the person says I am not ready to go. He says well you are going anyway. He says well I can take my stuff with me and he says no you have to leave all that behind. Because at the moment of death, everything is equal. You are standing there alone and you are standing there with animals and other people and basically you are alone. All your stuff has to be left behind. That is really the main point of this entire Psalm. There are some very good things in here that the Psalmist would like to understand. The thing that is good about this particular Psalm is that a lot of these applications are just as applicable today as they were 3,000 years ago when that Psalm was written. He wants us to remember a few things.
The first thing I think he wants us to remember is that we live in a world where people are out there trying to get you to give up your money. In other words, to give them your money. They will go through whatever means possible to try to separate you from your finances or your stuff. In this particular context, we don’t know what is going on. He goes on to say “Why should I fear when evil days come, when wicked deceivers surround me – those who trust in their wealth and boast of their great riches?” We don’t know exactly the situation here but apparently the Psalmist is feeling a little bit of anxiety that he is surrounded by people that are just focused on their wealth and trying to figure out deceitful ways to get at his wealth. We don’t know. It could be somebody trying to blackmail him. It could be the government trying to get some more taxes out of him. We really don’t know. What we do know is what was true back then is still true today. There are people out there trying to separate you from your wealth. They are so intent on getting money that they will do whatever they can to get their hands on it. Especially now when you think about the internet, they come up with all sorts of creative ways to separate you from not only your finances but your identity. They want to rob you of your identity so ultimately they can get their hands on the finances. They will do anything. One of the more recent scams some of you may be aware of is where somebody hacks into your computer, steals your address book, all your email addresses, and then sends out a mass email to all your friends with your name on it where you are basically asking your friend to give you money. This is true. An example would be somebody gets an email and it says hi this is Chuck. I am over in London this week having a great time at the Olympics. However, somebody stole my wallet and I need money. I can’t get home. I need about $2,000. Would you wire it to me? They send out thousands of these. The odds are, after a certain amount of emails sent, some compassionate person out there is going to say sure I will wire it to you that. Somebody will. That is the odds. They know that. You have people out there being creative on how they can accumulate wealth so that they can buy things to boast about their riches.
The Psalmist takes some comfort in the idea that although somebody can boast about their riches or accrue some short-term gains, the thing that everyone desires most they can’t get their hands on. That is eternal life. He goes on to say “No man can redeem the life of another or give to God a ransom for him. The ransom for a life is costly. No payment is ever enough that he should live on forever and not see decay.” You can’t buy eternal life. Lately, because of my age and I procrastinated a long time with this, I have had to sit down and go through my life insurance policy. Does anybody enjoy doing that? Do I have enough coverage? You might as well stick a needle in my eye because I just hate doing that sort of thing. I have been buying insurance for years but I don’t understand it. I don’t understand the difference between term life and whole life and universal life. I really don’t care. I don’t understand it. The one thing I do understand is the longer you wait, the more expensive life insurance is. Why is that? Because you are closer to dying. That is why. You are higher risk. It was a lot easier to get insurance when you are 17 than when you are 57. I will tell you that. I really probably couldn’t get insurance now if I told them I was going to take skateboard lessons from the Plank Eye Skateboard shop. They wouldn’t like that. Seriously, though, you can buy life insurance but you cannot buy eternal life insurance. It is not possible. When you hit that death bed and you meet up with the grim reaper and he comes knocking on your door and says come on it is time to go, you say no I need some more time. I can pay for it, how much money you need? Do you need $100, $200, $500? Let me buy a couple more days. I want to buy eternal life from you. Sorry, you can’t. It’s time to go. You can’t buy any more life. That is it. The interesting thing that the author wants us to understand is that this isn’t just for the wealthy who are deceitful. This isn’t for the poor. This isn’t just for the foolish or the wise. It is for everybody. Everybody has to go some day and meet their maker. He goes on to say “For all can see that wise men die, the foolish and the senseless alike perish, and leave their wealth to others.” Everybody is going to die. Someday there will be a whole other group of people here. You will all be gone. That is a morbid thought but that is the truth. He is saying that we are all headed to the grave. The thing that is very depressing about this is somebody else is going to get all your stuff. That is what it says right there – leave your wealth to others. Everybody is going to be at your funeral and cry and then they are going to go home and the feeding frenzy begins. First they are going to eat a lot of food. Then they are going to get ahold of your stuff. Everybody is going to start fighting over the stuff. They are going to say who is going to get Aunt Sally’s collectible porcelain dolls or spoon set from New Jersey or whatever? Who is going to get Uncle Billy’s shot glass collection? They are all fighting over that stuff because everybody wants your stuff. The sad thing about it is that your stuff is probably going to go to somebody you don’t even like. Those relatives you couldn’t stand are going to be there picking over your stuff. The thing that makes it worse is somebody you don’t even know is going to be picking over your stuff at a garage sale or an estate sale. They are picking up these precious things and just tossing it around like it is nothing. That is why you want to make sure you have a last will and testament. If you have a will, it is going to prevent Uncle Sam from getting his hands on your stuff. You know what would happen then right? You don’t want Uncle Sam to get his hands on your stuff because you don’t know where it is going to end up. So the Psalmist is saying we all are going to die. We are all going to meet that grim reaper. When we go, all your stuff stays behind. That is not rocket science. That is true.
He goes on to say something else. He wants you to understand is that not only is seeking earthly wealth really fruitless, but the idea of seeking any sort of fame like a name for yourself. Some people spend their entire life trying to make a name for themselves. Trying to get their name in lights of some sort. Trying to get their name on a football jersey or get their name on perfume or clothes or whatever. Some people want to get their names on buildings. I think about someone like Donald Trump. He builds these big penthouses, these towers and what does he do? He puts his name across the very top, Trump. He does it for airplanes. He does it for every building. He wants to know how important he is. He loves seeing his name on there. The Psalmist wants us to understand that this, too, doesn’t make a lot of sense. He goes on to say “Their tombs will remain their houses forever, their dwellings for endless generations though they had named lands after themselves.” He is saying name all the stuff you want after yourself because the last thing that gets your name is going to be your tomb and that is where you are going to spend eternity at least until it crumbles down and then you won’t even have that anymore. Enjoy your penthouse Donald Trump but someday your name is going to be on a tomb. He basically says that this is not really the fate for everybody, but everyone who trusts in themselves. He goes on to say “This is the fate of those who trust in themselves and of their followers who approve their sayings.” Basically it is somebody who says I create my own destiny. I create my own sense of wealth. I create my environment. I am in control. I hate to pick on Donald Trump but that is kind of the personality that comes to mind. I am in control of everything. A lot of these guys are very good about creating wealth. When you have somebody who is good at creating wealth, then you get a lot of people wanting to follow him or her. They want to learn how to create wealth too.
Then he goes on to say kind of a strange thing. He says “Like sheep, they are destined for the grave and death will feed on them.” This is one of those verses that has a lot of confusion about exactly what it means. To me, what I get here, like sheep they are going around eating grass here and there. They are kind of following the shepherd. They shepherd is out there guiding them making sure they don’t fall off this or that. Somebody who is pursuing wealth is kind of like a sheep. They are going around and picking up some money here. They are picking up some goods here. They might be taking some money from somebody here. They are walking around and getting fatter and they think they are getting healthy and they think they are in control. But really it is the shepherd who is in control and the shepherd is actually leading those people right to their grave. All these people that are bent on pursuing wealth and riches and stuff in this life are basically being led to the grave by a shepherd. That is the picture of what is going on here. When they finally get to the grave, they have been feeding on all the people in their life and now death itself is feeding on them. Their body is decaying. It is not a very pretty picture for a Sunday morning. I know some of you are thinking Chuck this is a downer message. Why don’t you play the Gatlin Brothers song again or something? This is kind of a bummer message. But it is true. Sometimes we don’t want to hear this, but sometimes we need a wakeup call. We saw a couple weeks ago what happened in Colorado. Just like that your life can be taken away from you. There is a message of truth here. There are several messages. There are people out there trying to just pursue selfish gain. Honest or dishonest, they are trying to go after this pot at the end of the rainbow. The reality is they know that even though they get all this stuff on earth, they cannot buy eternal life. They are all destined to the grave. When they die, all their stuff is going to go to someone else.
That is the message here, which actually kind of brings us back to the very last line. It says “A man who has riches without understanding is like beasts that perish.” That is what that Psalm is about. But I don’t like this Psalm because it does end obviously on a downer note. Nobody likes to think about themselves dying on the level of a beast. So I thought what do we need to do here? I began to think about the New Testament and think about some of Jesus’ words. The good news is that Jesus takes this and puts a positive spin on this whole idea. Before he does that, he has to put the negative side within a more contemporary context. We see that in the book of Luke 12. I will give you a quick context. This is where Jesus is walking along and all of a sudden two men start fighting over an inheritance. He says “Your life does not consist of the abundance of your possessions.” Then he goes on to say I am going to tell you a parable. “The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ Then he said, ‘This is what I will do. I will tear down my barn and build bigger ones and there I will store all of my grains and my goods and I will say to myself you have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink, and be merry.’” Now we know that is not the end of the story because God hasn’t spoken yet. It goes on to say “But God said to him, ‘You fool. This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself? This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.’” So you have a person here who is a very good business person doing things great but actually making more wealth than he can even accommodate. So he says I am going to build bigger barns and that way I can store up ahead of time and then I can sit back and drink margaritas on the beach and just enjoy myself. That is what I want to do. God says wait a minute. Don’t be so prideful because this very night your life is going to be taken from you and somebody else is going to get your stuff. Sound familiar? That is kind of a modern context there.
It would be easy for any of us, including myself, to sit back, read this passage, read Psalm 49 and say those guys are pretty bad. I am glad I am not like that. Correct? But the reality is we all are like that to a certain degree. Everybody in this room. Probably everybody in America if they choose to admit it. You say Chuck I don’t have any money. I guarantee you have stuff. If you look around you probably have more stuff than the average person in a third world country. We have stuff. Most of us have too much stuff. When I was doing the research for this it reminded me of a comedian by the name of George Carlin. Does anybody remember George Carlin? Another guy who passed away. He wasn’t one of my favorite comedians. He was a little bit too vulgar even for my taste. He was a guy out there who did a great routine called ‘Stuff’. Remember that? Basically it is quite simple. He said the minute we get out of the crib, we start wanting to accumulate stuff. We have to have toys. They have to have all their toys. They have to have their stuff. What happens over time is they get a lot of stuff and then go away to college so they have to take their stuff and move it into a dorm. So they have all their stuff crammed into a dorm. Then they get out of college and have to do something with their stuff because their parents don’t want them bringing their stuff back home. They have to go into an apartment and they begin filling up the apartment. Pretty soon, they get married and their stuff doubles and they say I need a house. So they get a house. What George Carlin says is a house is simply your stuff with a lid on it. That is all it is. And protected. That is all it is. A house is your stuff with a lid on it. It is all protected. You aren’t going to get my stuff. You stay away from my stuff. You can have your stuff but not my stuff. Just like you laugh, they laughed when George Carlin told the routine. Why do they laugh? Because it is true. And everybody here knows it is true, including me. We all got too much stuff.
I am sensitive to this because I don’t use the word lightly but I would say we all have a certain amount of hoarding within us. To a certain degree, we are all hoarders. I know there is actually an addictive behavior. Hoarding is an addiction. What I am saying is we all have degrees of hoarding. It is just a matter of degrees. We all have too much stuff. We just have too much stuff. That is the reality. Including me. As a side note, I was thinking about when we moved here eight years ago. We had not one truck but two trucks. All the people from the church came. Some of you were there. I was talking to somebody afterwards and I said I just really appreciate how the people from the church came out and welcomed us and helped us move in. She said they weren’t here to help you move in. They were just here to see what kind of stuff you had. Debbie had nicer stuff than me because I was a bachelor for a few years. That is true. I bet some of you have boxes in your attics that you haven’t looked at in years. I do. Some of you have clothes in your closets you haven’t worn in years. Why do you keep it? Someday I might look at that. Someday it is going to end up at a garage sale or your family is going to be digging through it and throw half of it out probably. That is just the reality of it. I am a hoarder. We could have a support group. I will be the first one. My name is Chuck and I am a hoarder. What I like to do is on Monday night I like to go out to some of the wealthier neighborhoods and you can find some nice stuff on the side of the curbs. I rationalize it. This stuff isn’t for me. Somebody might need it down the road, although it ends up in my garage. I admit I am a hoarder. But everybody here has hoarder tendencies. Does anybody want to admit it? We are all hoarders. My point is not to beat you up because you have things. My point is to beat you up if you put your trust in those things. That somehow the more you have, the more you are going to be protected. The more you are going to be able to deal with things down the road. The more money in your portfolio is going to protect you. In other words, it is putting trust in things rather than in God. What you are doing when you focus too much on those things or portfolios or possessions, whatever it is, you are demonstrating you have riches without understanding and you are destined for the grave.
I have to pause there and speak to the ones who are Christians that would say I don’t like the sound of that. Truthfully, if you are a confessed believer and have confessed Christ as Lord, you are not going to hell because you are a hoarder. You are secure. So when you go up to heaven and God opens that book, he is not going to see Chuck the hoarder. He is going to see Chuck the child of God. You got that? That is what he is going to see first. What he could see if he looked in that book is all your assets. I am not talking about earthly assets. You could have a ton of assets up in heaven already waiting for you. That is the exciting thing. God wants you to send tons of treasures ahead of you. There is a new thing in the airlines where, if you are worried about your baggage getting lost, you can have them pick it up the day before. It gets to the destination and they will tell you it is there so you don’t have to worry about your luggage. That is what Jesus wants to do for you. That is what God wants to do. He wants you to send your treasures forward. How do I know that? Because he makes it clear. You have to switch over to the gospel of Matthew where he says “Do not store up for yourself stuff on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourself stuff in heaven where moth and rust do not destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal; for where your stuff is there your heart will be also.” If you are a familiar with the gospel, you know that I have substituted a word. The original word is treasure but I put stuff in there because we can relate to stuff. We don’t use the word treasure but we have a lot of stuff. What he is saying is why are you spending time going after things that just moths will eat away. Clothes that you have had in your closet for years that you are never going to wear again and eventually the moths are going to get to it. Why do you spend your time focusing on it? Especially men we like to buy cars and we like to buy tools and all this stuff made of metal that is going to just rust away. Why do we spend all our hours going for things that simply someone eventually is probably going to get into your house and steal? Why would you do that? He says instead why don’t you store your stuff up in heaven where moths and rust do not destroy. Where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your stuff is, there your heart will be also. What he is doing here is making a very clear connection between your heart and your stuff. This is what you have to hear. He says if your stuff is on earth and that is all you are focused on, you may not even love God. You are demonstrating that your heart is here on earth. But if you are focusing on the things of God and you are trying to store up treasures in heaven, your heart is up there with God. Do you get that? This is important stuff.
You say Chuck this is good stuff. I want to figure out where to get my hands on some of that stuff. The sad thing is I can’t tell you where to find that stuff because there is no list in the Bible. I can help you make a list of probably the stuff on earth that you really probably don’t need, but I can’t tell you really how to get your hands on all this other stuff in heaven. I can kind of give you a clue. Basically, if you are familiar with the gospels, Jesus talks about the Kingdom of God. He talks about his agenda. His agenda that can be found in the gospel of Luke 4 where it says Jesus was standing up in the temple and he began to speak. He says “The spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” This is one of those passages that we just skip over but this is the heart of what Jesus came to do and what we are supposed to carry on. What we are trying to do is align our possessions, our direction, our focus with God’s agenda, with Christ’s agenda. Things like preaching the good news to the poor. If you are familiar with the Beatitudes it says “Blessed are the poor in the spirit.” What he is talking about here is the people that are spiritually empty and can’t make that connection to God and they are waiting for someone to come tell them about it. Those are the spiritually poor. He talks about proclaiming freedom for the prisoners. It could be anybody that is addicted to anything. Whether it is stuff. Whether it is alcohol. Whether it is lust. Whether it is drugs. They have to know that the gospel is a message of freedom. And the recovery of sight for the blind. Here I actually think he is talking about there are people with the gift of healing that are not utilizing that gift. Not only that, it is dealing with the physical needs of the people. Not to help them become hoarders but to deal with the basic necessities of life. The food. The shelter. The clothing. That is what he is saying there. Then he goes on to say to release the oppressed. People that are dealing with the injustices of the world. People that are victims are some sort of a system out there that keeps them down for whatever reason. He says “Proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” In other words, it is right now. The Lord’s favor, God’s grace wants to come down right now. When you align yourself with that agenda and you use your finances, your wealth, your stuff, whatever to line up with the agenda what happens is you can know that in some significant way, you are gaining those treasures up in heaven. Do you get that?
In closing, you think that is great Chuck. Where do I start with something like that? I would say it is really quite simple. Start with your checkbook. The checkbook says a lot about who you are and where your priorities are. Look at your income tax statement from last year. See how much money you gave away. Look at that stuff. Frankly, if you are not giving at least 10% of your annual income to something that supports this agenda, I say you are robbing God. You say Chuck that is an Old Testament thing the whole idea of tithe the 10%. I say you are right because in the New Testament Jesus says give it all to me. I want everything. In other words, it is not a matter of how much of your money you keep but how much of God’s money you choose to go back and invest in him. Focus on things that align with this agenda. At a minimum, start with the church. If you believe what we are doing here, if you believe we are at least touching on some of these things and you don’t know where to send your money, you should be giving to the church. But I am one of those ones that I don’t believe you have to give all the money to the church. I believe that as long as you are supporting this sort of agenda that is okay. It is okay to balance out your giving out there. But you should start with the church because the church is trying to line itself up with this particular agenda. If you don’t want to go through the church or you are already supporting the church, look around for other avenues. Other places that are doing this very same thing. Lately, some of you know we have been going through kind of a transformation over at the Shepherd’s door. The Shepherd’s door was a retail operation for the last four years. We decided that it basically was not truly in line as a retail store with our mission to be a door or a gate to what? To this sort of thing. It was designed to match the needs with the resources. It was designed to be an entry point for people with needs to receive spiritual, emotional, and physical help. That is the direction we are going. That is what we are doing now. Some of you know Matt. He is not here today. I think he is away at a wedding or something and he doesn’t know I am saying this. Matt is a guy with a heart after God. He was a guy that had a lot of stuff. He was an engineer making a lot of money. He was so excited about what we were doing over there he didn’t even ask about a salary. He just says this is me. This has my name all over it. He quit his job right before he got married even and decided he wanted to run that store. He wanted to run that community center. Now what he is trying to do is figure out how to support it because we are getting away from the retail side and trying to be more in line with the vision. So he is sitting there thinking how are we going to support it? He is putting a list together. Who can I talk to? He talked to the rotary club the other day. He is going to talk to some individuals. Talk to the churches. Talk to the mission boards. His heart is right there. We are doing that. We are clunky at it at best, but we are trying to do that. If you want to blow Matt away, you know what you can do is write a check to the Shepherd’s door for $5, $100, $1,000, whatever you want so when he gets back and he opens his mail and he sees that he has people in this church that truly are behind this mission he is going to be excited. It is going to affirm that what he quit his job to do we support him as a church. Do that. It doesn’t have to be the Shepherd’s Door. It can be any one of our ministries. Pull out the blue card in the pew and you begin to see all sorts of world ministries we support, local ministries, including His Place on the North Side that are reaching out to the city kids and the homeless. Support them. They are doing this sort of thing. Go to the Genesis House. The Genesis House is a place in town that simply exists to be kind of a safe haven for unwed mothers. They are always in need of clothing and money and diapers and that sort of thing. Those are all out there if you truly have a good understanding of this. Those are out there to be able to find an avenue for you to give your resources to.
In close, I don’t want to belabor this. This is not a sermon designed to make you feel guilty about giving. I don’t preach enough on giving to be honest. I don’t like it. I don’t like when I go to a church and the first thing I hear about is giving. But this is stuff you need to know. This is stuff that Christians especially need to know. What we are trying to get you to understand is that God can take those earthly treasures and he can convert those earthly things into heavenly things. He can put the stamp of immortality on the stuff that you have clogged up in your garage or basement right now. I like how A.W. Tozer says it. He says it best. He says “As base a thing as money is, it can be transmitted to everlasting treasure. It can be converted to food for the hungry and clothing for the poor. It can keep a missionary actively winning lost men to the gospel and mutate itself into heavenly values. Whatever is given to the cause of Christ is immediately touched with immortality.” Isn’t that awesome? Touched with immortality means it is out there forever. There was a movie Schindler’s List that came out. It was a true story about a German businessman named Oskar Schindler. He was very successful at making money, but he also felt compassion for the prisoners in the concentration camp. At some point he felt like I have to do something about this. He worked it out with the Nazis to actually purchase prisoners back from them to free them from the concentration camps where they were all waiting in line to be gassed. He had a whole system. He had a list of all the people that he could get out of the concentration camp that he could purchase out of there. The most difficult scene in the movie is the very last seen. He is standing there and he is surrounded by all the people that got out. All the people that got released from the concentration camp because of him but what he is doing is he stands there and he begins to look at his watch, he begins to look at his car, he begins to look at his ring. What comes over him is the idea that if he had gotten rid of that stuff, he could have bought another life or two lives or three lives or hundreds of lives. He is overcome with remorse. As we saw in the Psalm and as we know in the gospel, no one but Christ can redeem a life. Amen. No one can give someone eternal life. Not even Oskar Schindler. Only Christ can give eternal life. He did that through the sending of his son Jesus Christ. If you want to demonstrate you have a true understanding, he gives you the opportunity to actually partner with him as he continues the work of redeeming, of giving eternal life to people. When you come into that agenda, when you begin to proclaim the gospel in whatever context you are given, when you begin to release the prisoners, when you help people get through addictions, when you go to people and you help them get past their bondages or injustices, or whatever is going on, what you have demonstrated is not that you have riches without wisdom but that you have riches with wisdom. In other words, you understand that where you treasure is so is your heart. Let us pray.
