COVENANT PULPIT SERMONONTHEMOUNT Get in the way, know the truth, live the life August 3, 2012 POSSESSIONS Matthew 6:19-24 Pastor Trent Casto Covenant Church of Naples PCA 6926 Trail Boulevard, Naples, FL 34108 (239) 597-3464 www.covenantnaples.com
The famous old preacher David Martyn Lloyd-Jones told a story about a farmer who went into the house one day to tell his wife and family some good news. "The cow just gave birth to twin calves, one red and one white. We must dedicate one of these calves to the Lord. We will bring them up together, and when the time comes, we will sell one and keep the proceeds and we will sell the other and give the proceeds to the Lord s work." His wife asked him which he was going to dedicate to the Lord. "There's no need to bother about that now," he replied, "we'll treat them both in the same way and when the time comes, we'll do as I say." A few days later, he entered the kitchen looking unhappy. "What happened?" his wife asked. "I have bad news," he replied, "The Lord s calf is dead." I m sure this story is a fictional account, but it illustrates for us a key point about how we think about our possessions. When it comes to our possessions, or our treasures, given the choice between giving them and keeping them, we re inclined to keep them. This doesn t mean we ll always keep them, but it is our inclination. In fact, at a certain point, this inclination to keep and accumulate treasures rather than giving them away or dispensing of them is actually symptomatic of a psychological disorder. One of the proposed revisions to the new DSM V, is a category of disorder called Hoarding Disorder. The top two symptoms of this disorder would be: A. Persistent difficulty discarding or parting with possessions, regardless of their actual value. B. This difficulty is due to a perceived need to save the items and distress associated with discarding them. i I wonder how many of us Christians struggle with these symptoms of hoarding disorder? How much time and energy do we spend on hoarding up for ourselves treasures on earth rather than treasures in heaven? In this text, Jesus warns us that our hearts are inclined to treasuring up things that ultimately won t last and will only leave us feeling insecure, empty, and far from God. What and where is your treasure? Do not leave here today without honestly asking yourself this question, because whether you like it or not, what you treasure will transform you. There are three things I want to show you in this passage today regarding treasure: first, the two types of treasure. Second, the trickiness of earthly treasure. And third, the transference of your treasure. Let s start with: I. The Two Types of Treasure. In this passage, Jesus lays out two broad categories of treasure that encompass everything one can do and everything one can possess. There isn t anything that doesn t fit in one of these two categories. The first type of treasure he mentions is 1. Earthly Treasure. Look at verse 19, Do not lay up for yourselves treasure on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where
thieves break in and steal In Greek the nuance of this verb is not so much do not lay up but rather stop laying up for yourselves treasure. The implication is that this is what people are already doing. This is everyone s natural inclination given our state of separation from God. You don t have to tell people to try and accumulate as much stuff for themselves as they can; this is already their natural bent. I see this played out in my house all the time between my four year old Hudson, and my two year old Anna Kate. Hudson and Anna Kate will be sitting on the floor each playing happily with Lego s, when suddenly Hudson will realize that if he doesn t take and hoard all the remaining Lego s, Anna Kate may get some that he could possibly use. So he will quickly gather up every single Lego that isn t already in use and put it in his pile so that he has more Lego s than he can possibly use and she s left with the three she began with. When I challenge Hudson on this and say, Don t you think Anna Kate could use some of those Lego s?, he immediately gets defensive and says But dad, I need them! And I ll say, Really? What, are you building a life-sized tank? Eventually he ll toss her a token Lego or two and she ll usually be satisfied though I m not. But do you see the heart that s revealed in this? I ve got to get more, I need it. Most of us don t busy ourselves with hoarding Lego s, but we do hoard our treasures, whatever that might be. For many of us it s money. And we hoard lots of it. Why? I may need it. Like my son, when challenged on this we ll begrudgingly toss a few bucks toward the needy, but we keep the majority of our hoard. It may be in the form of cash, or savings, or real estate, but it s nothing short of hoarding while others are trying to make do with next to nothing. Jesus warns us against treasuring up earthly treasures because though they re visible now, they ultimately will disappear. He says again in verse 19, Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal These things that you treasure here on earth, whatever they happen to be, will ultimately not last. These visible investments you re pouring your whole life into appear to be safe bets, but at the end of the day all of them will dissolve into nothing. This is a bad investment. So what s the alternative? 2. Heavenly Treasure. Look at verse 20, But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. So if we re commanded to stop treasuring up earthly treasures in verse 19, in this verse we re told instead to treasure up for yourselves treasures in heaven. The reason we re not to store up treasures on earth is because they won t last. Conversely, we re told to treasure up heavenly treasures because they re not subject to decay or destruction but will actually last forever. It s
interesting to compare the two treasures. On the one hand, if you store up earthly treasures you are storing up something visible today that ultimately will become invisible. If you store up heavenly treasures, you are storing up something invisible today that will ultimately become visible and last forever. It s really a question of faith. Do you believe Jesus when he says that all the stuff you re inclined to treasure up here won t last, but if you treasure heavenly things you ll have them forever? The way you ll know you believe it is not by what you say, but by what you actually do. So what are these heavenly treasures that we re to be busy storing up? It s hard to say exactly what Jesus is talking about here, but I think we can safely say that heavenly treasure is anything we do here on earth that has effects lasting into eternity. Now this is actually a huge number of things. Obviously giving to those in need or toward the work of the ministry would qualify. But so would giving a cup of cold water to a thirsty human being. Teaching a Sunday school class would seem to qualify, but so would seeking to represent Christ well every day as a teacher in a public school. Starting a Christian non-profit whose proceeds directly promote Christian causes fits the bill, but so does serving as an executive in a secular company who works for the glory of God and the good of people rather than the bottom line. To store up treasures in heaven is to do anything that seeks to promote the cause of heaven without concern for how it may affect your treasure on earth. In fact, in many cases it is sacrificing your earthly treasure for Christ s sake that creates treasure in heaven. Do you want to know where your treasure is? Jesus says in verse 21, For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. If you want to know where your treasure is, the quickest way to find it is to follow the money trail. Here s what you can do: think through your life and consider where your money goes the most quickly, the most easily, and with the greatest joy. In other words, where do you often spend money, or large quantities of money, and it doesn t even feel like spending to you? For some of you, it s your appearance. For you it s nothing to shell out huge amounts of money to keep up with the latest styles or to simply make sure you look great. Why is that so important to you? Why is that so easy? Because you treasure what others think of your appearance. For others, it s investing in your financial security. For you, throwing huge amounts of money into savings or investments is the easiest thing in the world. Why? Because you treasure financial security and the sense of control that it brings. For others it s entertainment or pleasure. You can easily shell out huge amounts of money for a great trip or dining experience because you treasure these things and so it doesn t feel like spending at all. Let me ask you this: How easy does the money flow out of your pocket when it comes time for the faith promise pledge?
How quickly do you respond to an opportunity to give to the poor? How much joy do you get from giving your weekly offering to the church? What does this tell you about your treasure? Take a look at where you re spending your money the quickest and easiest and with the most joy and you will likely find your treasure. There you ll also find your heart. II. The Trickiness of Earthly Treasure. This middle section of the passage is a notoriously difficult passage to translate into English and therefore to interpret. But I think at the heart of these two verses the point Jesus is making is that earthly treasure, possession, and wealth are tricky. Here are four reasons why earthly treasure is tricky: 1. We re often blind to its influence in our lives. Greed and the love of money and the treasuring of earthly things are not sins that we re inclined to see in ourselves. This makes these sins somewhat unique. Tim Keller points out in his book Counterfeit Gods that Greed is the only sin where Jesus warns us: Watch out! In Luke 12:15 Jesus says, Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions (NIV). Why does he have to tell us specifically to Watch out! for this sin? He never tells us to watch out that you don t steal or watch out that you don t commit adultery because most sins you re well aware of when you re committing them. But this sin of greed, of spending more on yourself or your earthly treasures than you should, part of the trickiness of it is that almost no one thinks they re guilty of it. Somehow this sin blinds us to its effect and leaves us in the dark. That s really the point of what Jesus says in verses 22-23. Listen, The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! There is a sense in which the eye gives light to the body like a lamp gives light to a room. Jesus says that if your eye is good, or literally single and undistracted, your whole body will be full of light. If your eye is bad, or literally sick or evil, then your body is full of darkness. What makes this passage difficult for us to understand is that we don t recognize the common metaphor of a good eye and an evil eye in Jesus day. So let me show you another place where this concept of a good eye and evil eye show up. Turn over to Proverbs 22:9. In the ESV the passage reads, Whoever has a bountiful eye will be blessed There s a footnote there that points out to us that in the Hebrew this literally says, a good eye. The NIV translates the verse, A generous man will himself be blessed In Hebrew, to describe someone as having a good eye is to say that he is generous. Likewise, turn over to Proverbs 23:6 where we read, Do not eat the bread of a man who is stingy Again, if your Bible has footnotes you will see that literally in Hebrew this says, Do not eat the
bread of a man whose eye is evil. To have a good eye is to be generous and to have an evil eye is to be stingy. Coming back to our passage in Matthew then, it seems that what Jesus is communicating is that if you have a good or healthy eye, if you are generous, you will see all things clearly. However, if you have an evil eye, if you are a stingy hoarder of things, one who treasures up the things of this world, your whole life will be lived in the dark. And if that part of you which is supposed to give you light actually produces darkness in you, then you re in really deep trouble. The love of money, the love of earthly treasure blinds us to its influence and effect in our lives. 2. Earthly treasure is tricky because its influence is subtle but steady. Tim Keller again helps us see how the subtle influence of treasuring earthly things works in our lives today. No matter what product is out there, from phones to washing machines to golf clubs to houses, there s always a cheaper option and a more expensive option. When we start out life, we are able to afford one level of car and house and phone and washing machine. But we re keenly aware of the next level up. So when we get a little bit more money, rather than having more to give away, we upgrade a level in all those areas that are important to us. Then, when we come into more money, we do it again. And so we always stay living at or just over the level of our income. This is why though we make more money now than we used to, we don t really feel like we have any extra money to give away. This is the seductive power of earthly treasures. A person making $100,000 feels they need a $100,000 lifestyle. The person making a million feels the same way. What if instead, we decided we could live a $50,000 lifestyle though we make $200,000? How radical would that be? 3. Earthly treasure is also tricky because we all think that we re the ones who can do what Jesus said we can t: serve both God and money. He says very clearly in verse 24, No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. Almost every single one of us believes that we are the exception to this rule. We believe that we have what it takes to serve both. And this is part of the trickiness of earthly treasure. When Jesus is talking about serving a master, he is not talking about an employer-employee relationship. That s not the language he s using. He s using the language of a slave and his owner. And what he says is that you will be a slave to God, or you will be a slave to money, but you cannot be a slave to them both. One of them will own you. And if you think you can do both, you need to recognize that you have become a slave to money.
4. Earthly treasure is tricky because once we recognize its power in our life and even renounce it, the chain that binds us is not easily broken. I think this is best illustrated through the life of Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie was one of the wealthiest men in the world when his steel company became the most profitable business in the world. Early on in his success however, at age 33, Carnegie took a ruthless look at his own heart and wrote this: Man must have an idol the amassing of wealth is one of the worst species of idolatry. No idol is more debasing than the worship of money. Whatever I engage in I must push inordinately therefore should I be careful to choose the life which will be the most elevating in character. To continue much longer overwhelmed by business cares and with most of my thoughts wholly upon the way to make more money in the shortest time, must degrade me beyond hope of permanent recovery. I will resign business at thirty five ii This note is amazing in the way that Carnegie sees the danger of the pursuit of earthly treasure and the way it will ultimately degrade him if he continues to go after it like this for the rest of his life. Yet even though he recognized this danger, Carnegie did not stop the pursuit at age thirty five and many of the character defects he feared did work themselves out in his life despite his philanthropy. So how then do we break the chain of our slavery to money and earthly treasure? What will set us free from a life of investing everything in visible treasures that will ultimately become invisible, and instead invest our life in invisible treasures that ultimately will become visible and last forever? It s our third point: III. The Transference of Your Treasure. When you have an idol in your life, you can t simply remove it. It doesn t work. You were made to worship, you were made to live for something and you will live for something. You will find your hope and security and significance in something. The question is: will you find your hope, security, and significance in something that will last or something that is perishable? Will you find your hope, security, and significance in something that is uncertain, something that is subject to devaluation or inflation or economic downturn, something subject to aging or in something that is absolutely certain, invaluable, and never changes? If you find your hope, security, and significance in earthly things, that is, if you treasure earthly things, then you will always be anxious, insecure and feeling insignificant because that s how earthly things are! What you treasure will transform you. But if you re treasure is in heaven, secure, untouchable, of highest value, then you will be at peace, unshaken by economic downturns and the effect of aging on your body. Because your treasure isn t here or in anything on this earth. It s safeguarded in heaven and waiting for you. You and I must transfer our treasure from earthly things to heavenly things. Here s how:
1. You must recognize the empty promises of earthly treasure. Jesus has made this clear. Earthly treasures promise you safety, security, and significance and yet they can actually give you none of those things. Not only that, but when you re dead, all those things cease to matter at all. Rather than putting all your eggs in a basket that won t last, Jesus invites us to put all our trust in him and live this life for heaven s sake. 2. You must believe what God has said and take him at his word. There is no mincing of words in this passage. If you live for the things of earth, you will be bankrupt when you die. If you have nothing in this life but live for heavenly reward, you will be rich beyond measure for eternity. God says that explicitly. Do you believe him? Have you considered that your possessions and the amount of money and stuff you have accumulated for yourself will stand as a witness for or against your faith on the last day? 3. You must learn to treasure Jesus by grasping in the deepest part of your heart that he has treasured you. This last point is the most important. It is not enough for you to simply believe God or to believe in Jesus. Many of us believe in him and yet still serve earthly treasures and possessions. It s only when you learn to treasure Jesus that you will be free from treasuring the things of this world. How do you treasure Jesus? You ve got to grasp in the deepest part of who you are how he has treasured you. The Scripture tells us very plainly that Christ had all the riches and treasures of heaven at his disposal. Yet, for our sakes, he became poor. He came to earth, born in a manger, a poor man. He lived his life owning nothing but the cloak and sandals he wore. And then he suffered and was crucified on a cross, bearing the weight of God s wrath for your sins upon himself. Why? Because despite the fact that you rebelled against him, despite the fact that you hated him, you were his treasure. He loved you that much, and he loves you still. Now he invites you, in light of the fact that he has made you his treasure, to respond by making him your treasure. And when you do, then and only then, will you be free from the god of money and able to live for a treasure that nothing can destroy or take away. What you treasure will transform you. Jesus invites us to treasure him today. Copyright August 3, 2012 by Covenant Church of Naples / PCA i http://www.dsm5.org/proposedrevisions/pages/proposedrevision.aspx?rid=398#. Last accessed 8/3/12. ii Tim Keller, Counterfeit Gods: The empty promises of money, sex, and power, and the only hope that matters, 69.