Set Your Heart On Heavenly Treasure

In 1799, twelve-year-old Conrad Reed, skipped Sunday School to go fishing. He found a place to fish along Little Meadow Creek on his family’s farm in North Carolina. While standing by the creek, young Conrad saw what he thoughts was a “yellow rock shining in the water.” With some effort he pulled it out of the water and noticed that it seemed to be some type of metal and not stone. The large wedge-shaped rock weighed 17 pounds! He lugged it home and showed the rock to his father, Mr. John Reed. He too thought it was pretty cool. But he was unable to identify what it was. Well, it was shiny and heavy so immediately it became a doorstop at their home. There the shiny rock sat for three years almost unnoticed, while the Reed family tended to their farm.

In 1802, Mr. Reed decided to take the interesting rock to someone in a nearby city to see if they might know what it was. He showed the “doorstop” rock to a jeweler in Fayetteville, North Carolina. The jeweler recognized the metal immediately and asked Reed to leave the nugget with him so that it could be refined. Mr. Reed still had no idea of its worth and he named his own price and accepted $3.50 in payment for it. Estimates have placed the value of the gold in the rock even to approximately a hundred times as much as that.

So how do you feel when you hear that story? Perhaps we wonder how John Reed could have been so ignorant of what gold looks like and what it was worth. Even over two hundred years ago. We may also be shaking our heads at the fact that he sold a 17-pound gold rock for $3.50! (Oh, by the way at current gold prices, the rock would be worth around $895,000.) And then there is the jeweler. While we may think the Fayetteville jeweler was a crook and a cheat, he knew treasure when he saw it. He recognized that the rock was gold, and he knew what gold was worth. Also, in fairness to him he did offer John Reed whatever price he wanted for that golden stone.

Mr. Reed wasn’t the first person, nor was he the last, to not recognize the value of something. We hear stories like that all the time. People sell something or give something away not knowing its true value. In our Gospel Lesson for today we heard Jesus’ instruction to his disciples about recognizing what is most valuable and what is less valuable. Jesus gave his disciples a way of looking at the possessions of daily life. To most people they seem so valuable and so important. But Jesus opened their eyes worldly things as they really are and spiritual things as they really are.

There’s a phrase in the middle of our Gospel Lesson where Jesus expressed how his followers would be tempted to “set their hearts” on things of little value. If they did that they would not “set their hearts” on what is priceless. Then in the last verse of our Gospel Lesson Jesus uses similar words but in reverse to say that what we treasure will be where our heart goes. Let’s use the idea of what our heart treasures as the theme of our sermon today. May God the Holy Spirit help us to:

“SET OUR HEARTS ON HEAVENLY TREASURE”

I. Live Free of Worry Over Worldly Things

II. Use Worldly Things for God’s Kingdom

For most of the summer we have been progressing through Luke’s Gospel. Bible scholars have pointed out that Luke gives us a “travel narrative” where Jesus made His way to Jerusalem. That’s found from Luke 9:51–19:27. That’s ten chapters of Luke’s Gospel! There are some teachings, parables, and events that only Luke shares that deepen our understanding of what it means to be one of Jesus’ disciples. He also shares and understanding of the true nature of God’s Kingdom.

Chapter 12 of Luke’s gospel is part of a larger section dealing with serious warnings given by Jesus. He warned his disciples against hypocrisy, against trying to hide their faith in order to avoid persecution (12:1–12). He warned them against setting their hearts on worldly riches and pleasures (vv. 13–21) which could destroy their faith. That’s the Gospel Lesson for next Sunday. Then in our Gospel Lesson for today Jesus warned his disciples against being worried about earthly needs (vv. 22–30) and missing out on the value of God’s Kingdom.

I.

Worry over worldly things is definitely a thread that runs through our Gospel Lesson. If the disciples focused on the material things of everyday life they would be in a state of constant worry. “Then Jesus said to his disciples: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. 23 For life is more than food, and the body more than clothes.” Living a life free of worry over worldly things begins when we see those things as they really are. Yes, material things are necessary, but they don’t define life. They are temporary, perishable, and passing.