GAMES PEOPLE PLAY: “Trivial Pursuit”
Matthew 6:19-24
INTRODUCTION: Trivial Pursuit is a board game for 2-6 players or teams, in which winning is determined by your ability to answer general knowledge and pop culture trivia questions. The game was created in December 1979 by two Canadian journalists; its popularity peaked in 1984, when over 20 million games were sold. Dozens of question sets have been released for the game, some designed around a specific era or as promotional tie-ins (such as Star Wars, Saturday Night Live, and The Lord of the Rings movies), and of course there’s an online version. The actual game play involves pieces of a pie that travel around in a circle without getting anywhere.
For many people, their entire life upon closer inspection is one big Trivial Pursuit. They collect their pieces of pie (school, job, house, car, investments, entertainment … God?) And they go around and around but wind up in the same place as they started. When the game is over, all the pieces go back in the box. And you can’t take any of your pie pieces with you. Sound familiar? Maybe a little too familiar?
>> Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount that there’s a better way to approach life. Jesus says that instead of trivial pursuit, our lives should be about eternal investment. [BIG IDEA] INSTEAD OF PURSUING WHAT’S TRIVIAL, WE SHOULD INVEST IN WHAT’S ETERNAL. [READ Matthew 6:19-21]
I. WE SHOULD INVEST IN THE ETERNAL BECAUSE TRIVIAL PURSUITS DON'T LAST (19)
A. In the first century, banks did not exist, so people saved their wealth in three ways:
1. One was by hoarding garments. A cache of fine garments was as good as money in the bank, for they could be sold in the future.
2. A second way of accumulating wealth was to store grain in barns. Famine was an ever-present reality in the ancient world because of unpredictable rains. If you could store your grain until a famine came and prices soared, you could become fabulously wealthy.
3. The third method of saving lay in exchanging their assets for gold. Instead of locking it in a vault, however, they hid it in a pot or buried it in a field.
B. Jesus pointed to the ways rich people held their possessions, and warned that there are no safe investments.
1. For a gourmet moth beautiful garments make a splendid menu, and garments with holes become a lost investment.
2. Grain could be eaten by rats and mice.
3. Thieves can steal gold by breaking in.
People may have thought their garments, grain, and gold were secure, but moths, mice, and marauders could take them. They were not eternal investments.
C. 2000 years have passed. Our culture may have changed but the reality hasn’t.
1. Stocks and bonds are at the mercy of a changing market.
2. Inflation, like a rat, can nibble away at a bank account. Currency can be devalued.
3. Houses, boats, and cars are subject to fire, hurricanes, and rust. (I used to think the value of my house would always go up. That was before 2008.)
4. Even land can lose its value with just one chemical spill. Wherever we put our wealth on earth, there are no guarantees. Earthly investments are trivial pursuits!
>>Jesus gave better advice on investments. Equities built up in heaven are more secure and bring better dividends.
II. WE SHOULD INVEST IN THE ETERNAL BECAUSE ETERNAL INVESTMENTS KEEP (20)
>> So what does it mean to invest in the eternal? What are these "treasures in heaven" Jesus talks about?
A. “Treasures in heaven” should be applied as broadly as possible—as everything that we believers can take with us beyond the grave:
1. Holiness of character & obedience to God’s commands
2. Acts of service offered in worship to God
3. Souls introduced to Christ
4. Disciples nurtured in their faith
B. In this context, however, storing up treasures focuses particularly on the use of material resources to meet others’ physical and spiritual needs, in keeping with the priorities of God’s kingdom.
1. It means to give in support of God’s work in the world. What we invest in people lasts, because people are eternal.
2. [Quote] Jim Eliot, martyred missionary: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”
C. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians that if we sow sparingly, we will reap sparingly, but if we sow generously, we will reap generously. This is good news for eternal investors.
1. When I give away something valuable, it feels like a loss. I had something, now I don’t. And that can be a tremendous disincentive to give more.
2. But Jesus puts this concept in a completely different light. He says that giving to God’s work is not giving something away—it’s an investment, not a loss.
3. The farmer who sows doesn’t lose his seed, he gains a crop. Those who invest in eternity don’t lose their investment, they gain a treasure
D. God is up to something in this world. And when we get involved with Him this way, we are taking our place in a plan that’s much bigger than our life. We are participating in God’s providential plan for the world. God is going to do it with us or without us. But he invites us to partner with Him. And when we do, our lives take on a whole new level of significance. Sow eternally, reap eternally.
>> And not only do eternal investments keep ...
III. WE SHOULD INVEST IN THE ETERNAL BECAUSE ETERNAL INVESTMENTS KEEP US (21-24)
A. Investing in the eternal keeps our perspective right.
1. We are to put our treasure in heaven not only because that which is eternal will last and that which is temporal will fade, but also because it will give us the right perspective. Notice Jesus doesn’t say our treasures follow our hearts—it’s the other way around. Where we put our treasures our hearts will be. So how can we cultivate a heart for God? By putting our investments in the right place. It’s a fact of life that our interests follow our investments.
2. Our eyes are like lamps that illuminate the inside of us. When we close our eyes, everything inside goes dark. When we open our eyes, light floods in. If we lose our sight, everything inside us is midnight. Jesus used the eye to symbolize our perspective on life. If our perspective is eternal, we walk in light. We are not likely to stumble because we see things as they really are. We recognize the difference between the eternal and the temporal. But if we don’t see well, if our perspective is temporal, we’re likely to trip over every little obstacle. Jesus lamented that if we confuse darkness with light, our darkness is very deep indeed.
3. Our perspective is either one of light or of darkness. And if we can’t tell the difference, it’s disastrous. Our perspective determines our priorities, which in turn determine our actions.
4. [Illustration] In the book, Influence, Robert Cialdini tells a fascinating story about the owner of a jewelry store who was having trouble moving some of the merchandise. Specifically, she had an overabundance of turquoise and silver Native American jewelry. The jewelry owner had tried every conventional sales trick to make the jewelry more appealing—placing the pieces in a central display case, asking her sales staff to "push" them and so on. Nothing worked. On her way out of town for a business trip, she scribbled an exasperated note to the store manager directing her to cut the price in half. "Everything in this display case, price x ½," she wrote. All the jewelry sold. The astonishing part was that the manager misread the scribbled note. She had read the "½" as a "2." Instead of slashing the original price of the jewelry in half, she had doubled it.
So, how did she manage to sell the unsellable jewelry at double the price? Cialdini explains that people never questioned the true value of the jewelry. They just assumed that an expensive price tag must translate into valuable and good jewelry.
We live in a world where the "price tags" have been falsified. Someone (Satan, the World, our flesh) has increased the price on things that are not valuable, and we have allowed ourselves to be deceived into lives of Trivial Pursuit.
5. When we gain an eternal perspective, our earthly perspective is never the same. Our viewpoint is all-important.
B. Investing in the eternal keeps our hearts right.
1. Jesus wasn’t talking about moonlighting, working for two different employers. He was describing the problem of being a full-time chattel slave to two masters.
a. A first-century slave was the property of the master. He belonged to the master all day and every day. He didn’t work eight hours and have the rest of the day to himself. He did whatever his master wanted him to do, whenever he wanted it done.
b. In that culture, how could one possibly be a slave to two masters? What if their demands competed or were incompatible? The slave would have to choose one master and turn his back on the other.
2. The slave must choose which master to serve. That choice resembles marriage in the sense that when we love one person, we say no to all others. The job of marriage requires a 24-hour a day commitment. You can’t be married to two people simultaneously. You can’t dance to the music of two orchestras at the same time. You can’t worship in the temple of two separate gods. And you cannot serve both God and money.
3. We all serve something. Something governs our lives, determines our priorities, dictates how we spend our time, affects our daydreams, writes our definition of success.
4. [Illustration] The New York Times reports that people spend close to three hours a day looking at a mobile screen—and that excludes the time they spend actually talking on the phones. In a recent survey of smartphone use by Bank of America, about a third of respondents said they were "constantly" checking their smartphones, and a little more than two-thirds said that they went to bed with a smartphone by their side.
Those habits have prompted new tech start-ups dedicated to helping people cut back. For instance, the company NoPhone offers a $12 piece of plastic that looks like a smartphone but actually does nothing. Van Gould, a representative for the company, said he and his partners had sold close to 3,200 NoPhones, which they market as a security blanket for people who want to curb their phone addiction but are afraid to leave home without something to hold on to. Even though many are doubtless bought as gags, Van Gould said, "Most people don't think about phone addiction as a real thing until you're like, 'O.K., they're buying a piece of plastic because they are worried about their friend,'" Mr. Gould said.
This may seem like a gag gift, but it does show how we're in bondage to distractions that are trivial pursuits.
C. [Application] Whether it’s with our technology or entertainment or money, we try so hard to create heaven on earth and to throw in Christianity when convenient as another small addition to he so-called good life. Jesus proclaims that unless we are willing to serve him wholeheartedly in every area of life, we cannot claim to be serving him at all.
1. The only question is, what will you serve? We can serve money in reality and God in pretense. You can serve God and use money, but you can’t serve them both. So the question is, do you serve God and use money, or do you serve money and use God?
2. Money—
It can buy you a house, but not a home.
It can buy you a bed, but not sleep.
It can buy you a clock, but not time.
It can buy you a book, but not knowledge.
It can buy you a position, but not respect.
It can buy you sex, but not love.
It can buy you medicine, but not health.
It can buy you blood, but not life.
3. [Application] How can I know if I am mastered by my money? A couple of questions come to mind:
a. First, how did I get the money? Did I cheat to get it? Did I sacrifice something eternal to get it? If so, I am a slave to money.
b. Second, what do I do with my money? Let’s be blunt—is the mission of God in the world better off because I have been entrusted with money? Or does God get only my spare change?
c. Third, if I suffer financial setbacks and change my budget accordingly, does God and God’s work get eliminated? Where do God and His priorities fit in my budget?
CONCLUSION: [Big Idea] DON'T PURSUE THE TRIVIAL; INVEST IN THE ETERNAL.
[Illustration] A man in NYC was married to a wife who had a cat. Actually, the cat had her. She loved the cat. She stroked it, combed it, fed it, and pampered it. The man detested the cat. He was allergic to cat hair; he hated the smell of the litter box; he couldn’t stand the scratches on the furniture; and he couldn’t get a good night’s sleep because the cat kept jumping on the bed. When his wife was out of town for the weekend, he put the cat in a bag with some rocks, dumped it in the Hudson River, and uttered a joyful goodbye to the cat. When his wife returned and couldn’t find her cat, she was distraught and overwhelmed with grief.
Her husband said, “Look honey, I know how much that cat means to you—I’m going to put an ad online and give a reward of $500 to anyone who finds your cat.” No cat showed up, so a few days later he said, “Honey, you mean more to me than anything on earth; if that cat is precious to you, it’s precious to me. I’ll tell you what—I’ll raise the reward for finding your cat to $1000.”
A friend saw the post and said, “Are you nuts? No cat on earth is worth a thousand dollars.” The man replied, “Well, when you know what I know, you can afford to be generous.”
If we have any inkling of what it means to be part of God’s kingdom, if we know what Jesus wants us to know, we can afford to be generous. We can establish kingdom priorities by the way we live and give.
