Treasures and Hearts Sermon
1. What would you do for ten million dollars? I’m not giving it out, you understand, but there was a recent poll of Americans that asked them that question. I won’t share all the results with you, but some of them are interesting.
a. Twenty-five percent of us say we would abandon our church for ten million dollars. I suppose I should feel good that 75% of you would stay put. Sixteen percent of Americans say they would give up their American citizenship for ten million dollars. Seven percent say they would kill a stranger. That’s a little frightening. And 3% claim they would put their children up for adoption for ten million dollars. That’s just sad.
b. Well, like I said, we’re not giving out ten million dollars, but I do want us to spend a little time this morning reflecting on the role of money and possessions in our lives, the third week of my series on “Living for Giving”
2. "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, there your heart will be also." (Matthew 6:19-21)
3. Where (and what) is my treasure?”
a. A treasure is something I value.
i. It is something I hold valuable and dear.
ii. It could be a thing, a person, a job, the opinions of others.
iii. It could be my reputation, my home, my car, my time.
b. Some things are treasures because of their sentimental value.
i. Photo albums – people have been known to re-enter burning homes to retrieve their photos.
ii. A family heirloom. A piece of jewelry. The letters of our spouse when we were dating.
c. We treasure other things because of their beauty.
i. A painting or sculpture, or even a print.
d. Treasures express what we deem most valuable.
e. Treasures mirror the affections of the heart.
i. A treasure tattles on what we are attached to.
ii. Jesus said that where our treasure is, our heart will be also.
iii. Find where your treasure is and you will find your heart there.
f. If you really want to know where someone’s heart is, just see where they spend their time, and see where they spend their money. That is their treasure.
i. We may say that we treasure God’s values and the eternal kingdom, but our lives spell another story. Audit our check books and our daytimers and you can see the truth.
g. Every Person listening to Jesus speak knew what Jesus meant by treasures:
i. It was certainly not that his first audience had much of this world’s goods.
ii. Many of them were so impoverished that they barely had the clothes on their backs and wondered where their next meal might be found. Poverty was endemic to the first century.
iii. Yet Jesus spoke of treasures to his audience because everyone has his own treasures – even the poor.
iv. Our Lord was excluding no one from the matter of treasures.
v. Treasures consist more in the affections of the heart than in what one can hold in his hands.
vi. Jesus isn’t talking about what you have-He is talking about what you treasure. There is a difference.
vii. The question isn’t how much do you own. It is what (or who) owns you?
h. Have you ever known anyone who comes to the end of their life, lying on their deathbed, taking their last breaths of life and says, ’Man, I wish I had spent more time at the office?’
4. What is Jesus saying – about the Nature of Treasures
a. Today’s text doesn¹t tell us to give up our treasures.
i. t tells us to stop holding them and to allow God to hold them.
ii. That is when the miracles can start.
iii. In the hands of God, when all our earthly treasures are transformed into eternal testimonies to the power of faith, hope, and love.
b. It may help us here if we begin by listing what he was (and is) not forbidding.
i. First, there is no ban on possessions in themselves; Scripture nowhere forbids private property.
ii. Secondly, ’saving for a rainy day’ is not forbidden to Christians, or for that matter a life insurance policy which is only a kind of saving by self-imposed compulsion.
1. On the contrary, Scripture praises the any for storing in the summer the food it will need in the winter, and declares that the believer who makes no provision for his family is worse than an unbeliever. (Prov.6:6ff; 1 Tim.5:8).
iii. Thirdly we are not to despise, but rather to enjoy, the good things which our Creator has given us richly to enjoy (1 Tim.4:3,4; 6:17)
1. Ascetic – I gave the definition last Sunday evening. It’s a word most of us haven’t heard before.
2. It was a word used to describe the Monks of the 5th century, who said that material things were evil and that to be spiritually pure you had to be poor.
iv. But from our definition above, things aren’t bad. In fact, you and I can own nothing and can be materialistic and treasure things, while a man that owns much can treasure heavenly things.
1. Illus: Thomas Merton, a contemporary Monk who wrote to our generation. He sought out the monastery as a place to escape the lusts of his age, thinking that when I get to the monastery, I will finally be free of this stuff. He found out the opposite. That the attachment to things is a heart problem, not a proximity problem.
c. What Jesus forbids his followers is the *selfish* accumulation of goods (NB ’Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth’); extravagant and luxurious living; the hardheartedness which does not feel the colossal need of the world’s under-privileged people; the foolish fantasy that a person’s life consists in the abundance of his possessions (Luke 12:15); and the materialism that tethers our hearts to the earth
i. the Sermon on the Mount repeatedly refers to ’the heart’, and here Jesus declares that our heart always follows our treasure, whether down to earth or up to heaven
5. What Jesus is saying about Security of Treasures:
a. Earthly Treasures are corruptible – They don’t last, they rot, they fall apart, they break, they rust. If you own a car you know that it eventually breaks down. Everything wears out.
i. In those days moths would get into people’s clothes, rats and mice eat the stored grain, worms take whatever they put underground, and thieves break into their home and steal what they kept there. Nothing was safe in the ancient world. And for us moderns, who try to protect our treasure by insecticides, rat poison, mousetraps, rustproof paints and burglar alarms, it disintegrates instead through inflation or devaluation or an economic slump. Even if some of it lasts through life, we can take none of it with us to the next.
ii. One fellow went for a job interview with his main concern, "What kind of job security will I have?" The interviewer replied, "There is None."
1. Hebrews 13:13-14-Therefore let us go forth to Him, outside the camp, bearing His reproach. For here we have no continuing city, but we seek the one to come.
iii. EVERYTHING THAT THE WORLD CAN OFFER is of only temporary value. Nothing that we see around us is permanent. Iin the end, when we enter the other world we leave all such worldly things behind.
b. Accumulating "earthly treasures" gives a false sense of security.
i. Sinclair Ferguson made an interesting observation. “The more we gather possessions in order to feel secure, the more we feel we need them in order to be secure and then the more we need to guard them to maintain our security. Therefore, the less secure we are!”
ii. One enemy of contentment is the fatal attraction of money and the things it can buy.
1. Several years ago an ad appeared in USA Today for a BMW automobile. The ad began like this: "Needless to say, you can’t buy happiness. But for a mere $299 a month, you can lease exhilaration." After extolling the virtues of the BMW, the ad concluded by saying, "For a program of spiritual uplift on easy monthly terms, we recommend you visit a participating BMW dealer." There we have it: spiritual uplift from a car. And I only thought I had heard everything!
2. Whether it’s a new BMW, a top-of-the-line home theater system, the fastest computer money can buy, or the house of our dreams, Satan spins the yarn that, if only we could have what we want, we will be happy, contented people. But it’s a lie.
3.
c. Accumulating "earthly treasures" creates an insatiable desire for more. (Ecc. 5:10)
i. We Always Want More - Developmental psychologists experiment with human behavior. In one clinical trial babies are given a mobile with two figures on it. The infants are happy and spontaneous as they play with it. This mobile is removed and replaced with one with twelve figures on it. The child responds and seems happy and stimulated. After a while the first mobile is re-introduced. The overwhelming response is displeasure
ii. The truth is that, if we get what we want, we will experience only a brief time of exhilaration. But soon enough, we’ll tire of it all. Then, of course, the sin within will drive us to want more, and more, and still more. Soon we are caught in endless cycle of acquiring more of this and more of that. The problem, of course, is that the more we acquire, the more we want to acquire. The cycle has no end. But in the end, we will feel not happiness, but sorrow, and not contentment, but depression
iii. I have heard it said that all of us have a God-sized hole in our heart that only God can fill. People try to fill it with things, pleasures, success, recognition, money…and find out that it still hungers for more. It is never satisfied until it gets what fits. The only thing that will fit that hole in our heart is Jesus. He came to earth to fill you and I and to satisfy that longing for meaning and significance. Won’t you turn to Him today?
d. Accumulating "earthly treasures" is costly to maintain and protect.
i. You will notice that every thing you own you must maintain. If it is wool, you must dry clean it. If it is a sweater, you must hand wash it. If it is a vehicle, you must maintain it, you must insure it.
ii. I bought homeowner’s insurance on our home recently, and found out and purchased “Earthquake” insurance. I also found out that most homeowner’s policies don’t insure over a certain amount for jewelry, guns or electronics. Unless you are willing to pay an extra (high) premium for it.
iii. What if I had fewer treasures…What treasures would I let go of?
iv. What treasures do you have? What treasures could/should you let go of?
6. Investing in Heaven
a. Since where our treasure is our heart will be also, it seems that we ought to make deliberate choices to ensure that our treasures are not here on earth. Now that isn’t easy, but it is important to make these choices.
b. In fact, we should be making choices that ensure that our treasure is in heaven. I would like to call it “investing” in our heart’s target.
i. Who among you would buy stock in a company that you knew would fail in 2 years? Probably very few of us
ii. Who among us would buy stock in a company whose product would cease to be used in 10 years?
iii. Very few I imagine. Why is that? We are told by stockbrokers to always invest for the long haul.
iv. What about the fact that you and I buy stock in this EARTH every day and every week, when this earth is going bankrupt and will be out of business someday…likely by the time we leave it?
1. What kind of investment is that? It is a BAD investment to put your treasures into something that will fail!
2. So we must put our treasures into something that will succeed!
3. And Jesus tells us that is in heaven.
v. What kind of return will you get on your investment?
vi. Jesus said “John 14:1-3 "Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. 2 "In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. 3 "If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, {there} you may be also.”
1. This “place” in heaven is a place reserved for you. It is a place you can send treasures on ahead to.
2. A recent Christian song with a country twang to it told the story about “I didn’t send any wood.” The singer gets to heaven and sees some wonderful homes in glory, and is led to a tiny shack. He asks the angel why is that all he gets? To which he is told, “Because you didn’t send any wood.”
3. The moral of the story was that he kept all his treasures on earth and as a result didn’t have any in heaven when he got there.
4. You and I know that we don’t get to heaven by our efforts or works. That our love and service of others is the fruit of our thanks to God for what He has done in our loves by sending His son and forgiving and making us into new people.
5. But our actions, our treasures we have a choice in where they are found. And this is the bottom line of Jesus’ message as well.
c. Investing – you never get to do it unless you are intentional about it.
i. We all budget if we wish to reach any goal or have any funds left at the end of the month.
1. We put money aside for our offerings on Sunday, we put money aside for groceries, for clothing, for recreation, for gifts…
2. But to invest in heaven, we must be equally intentional.
a. We must determine to make a lifestyle change – that is, stop investing (spending) on certain areas that have only a temporary effect.
b. And start investing in other areas that will have an eternal impact.
c. I really don’t care whether you give it to the church or not…I am talking about you and I becoming on-fire disciples for God and recognizing that God owns all we got and that we are simply the stewards or managers of the account He has given us.
d. He desires that we build treasures in heaven. We must make conscious efforts to make those investments in heaven therefore.
e. Make an intentional action of putting aside what you are saving from a lifestyle change and commit it to God’s work somewhere on this earth. Whether it be secretly assisting a family in need, providing donations to homeless shelters or supporting a missionary. Seek God’s will and begin to develop a lifestyle of moving your ASSETS into eternal ones.
3. It is said that John D. Rockefeller spent his life building an empire only to awaken one day and realize its temporal waste. He spent his last years giving the money away to philanthropic causes, nearly 1 Billion dollars by 1936. John D. Rockefeller had been raised a Baptist and somehow lived his early years thinking only about he accumulation of treasures and power. But as his life drew to a close, he re-evaluated his life and began to “transfer his assets.”
4. Jesus told the story of a man that failed to do that. Luke 12:16-21
a. "And He told them a parable, saying, "The land of a certain rich man was very productive.] "And he began reasoning to himself, saying, ’What shall I do, since I have no place to store my crops? "And he said, ’This is what I will do: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. ’And I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink and be merry." ’ "But God said to him, ’You fool! This very night your soul is required of you; and now who will own what you have prepared?’ "So is the man who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God."
5. None of us are billionaires. Compared to 85% of the world we are incredibly wealthy.
a. A full-page advertisement in one of the weekly news magazines. It portrayed a beautiful woman hailing a cab on a city street with her arm outstretched. You could see her stunning and very expensive watch, which was the product being sold. On the opposite page, the magazine was running a story about children dying of starvation in Sudan. In the middle of the article was a large photograph of an emaciated child. When you held the magazine out, and looked at both photographs side-by-side the contrast was striking. Then it occurred to me that both of these people are dying. But only the starving child knew it.
b. How attached are we to what we have, what we own, and the implied security it seems to give us that we refuse to open our hands so God can use it and create eternal assets from it?
c. Consider S. Truett Cathey. I have always been impressed with him. I am not sure how he runs his business exactly, but I have been impressed with one decision that he has made. Mr. Cathey is the 80 year old founder, the CEO of Chic-fil-a. They probably lose 20% of profits because they are closed on Sunday, and have been since the beginning of their founding. I have been impressed with that decision. He is expressing something that he treasurers higher than corporate profits. We don’t treasure the things of this earth. They are not what we live for because they are temporal. One day they will be gone.
d. 1 Timothy 6:17-19 Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy. Instruct them to do good, to be rich in good works to be generous and ready to share, storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is life indeed.
ii. It takes faith to invest your life in eternal treasure rather than indulging your life in temporal pleasure. )
1. Ways to make investments in eternity?
a. letters to guests, missing or sick members is a tremendous and much needed ministry.
b. Just popping in and trimming the hedges or fixing the building are great servant acts that don’t get a lot of notice.
c. A telephone call of encouragement to our older members, sick members, down members.
d. The great thing about behind the scene activities is that you don’t get too old to do them.
e. We reach an age where we can’t preach, teach, lead singing, or actively visit people, but anyone can send a card, give a quick call, or pray for someone
f. Those activities are as important as the one that get noticed
2. A self-indulgent life is a wasted life.
7. I would like to close with a poem entitle: “I Would Like to Buy Three Dollars Worth of God.”
I’d like to buy three dollars worth of God please,
Not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep,
But just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine.
I don’t want enough of him to make me love a black man or pick beets with a migrant.
I want ecstasy, not transformation.
I want the warmth of the womb, not a new birth.
I want a pound of the eternal in a paper sack.
I would like to buy three dollars worth of God, please.
We want God to be with us, but not Lord of us,
Christmas is almost here. God with us – Immanuel – Jesus the Christ. Do we want Him to be Lord of us, to produce in us eternal treasures or are we content to be comfortable, blind, and lazy? God gave the gift of Himself to us at Christmas. Will we give Him ourselves in return?
Let’s pray.
