The Disciple’s Life: Treasure Hunt Series

The Disciple’s Life: Treasure Hunt

Matthew 6:19-34

How many of you have ever done a treasure hunt. Not sailing around the Caribbean looking for sunken ships with their holds full of gold and jewels or scouring islands for buried chests filled with the same, but the game. If I remember right, you divide up into teams and each team is given a list of items and then sent out to find each item on the list. It was also called a scavenger hunt I believe.

Here’s a short clip from the epic film …. Popeye: The Sailor Man With The Spinach Can! In this scene Pappy’s long hidden treasure is revealed. By the way, Pappy is Popeye’s dad which also makes this an appropriate clip for Father’s Day! (this sermon was preached on Fathers Day, 2011)

Role the clip! (Popeye: The Sailor Man With The Spinach Can!, Paramount Pictures, 1980, Robin Williams and Shelley Duvall. Time frame 1:45:14 - 1:45:52 If you don’t want the sword play in the middle of this clip you can end at 1:45:32.)

Treasures and treasuring are central to our humanity. This morning we will see how the disciple’s life is a treasure hunt.

Turn with me to Matthew 6:19-34

19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; 21 for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

22 “The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

24 “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

There you have it: The disciple’s life is a Treasure Hunt! The question is, what is the treasure you are hunting for?

In our world of unprecedented choices I want to suggest to you this morning there is really ONE choice you are faced with in the life you have been given to live. Solomon gives a rather graphic depiction of this choice:

Proverbs 9

1-6 Lady Wisdom has built and furnished her home; it’s supported by seven hewn timbers.

The banquet meal is ready to be served: lamb roasted,

wine poured out, table set with silver and flowers.

Having dismissed her serving maids,

Lady Wisdom goes to town, stands in a prominent place,

and invites everyone within sound of her voice:

"Are you confused about life, don’t know what’s going on?

Come with me, oh come, have dinner with me!

I’ve prepared a wonderful spread—fresh-baked bread,

roast lamb, carefully selected wines.

Leave your impoverished confusion and live!

Walk up the street to a life with meaning."

13-18 Then there’s this other woman, Madame Whore—

brazen, empty-headed, frivolous.

She sits on the front porch

of her house on Main Street,

And as people walk by minding

their own business, calls out,

"Are you confused about life, don’t know what’s going on?