Seek Ye First - Matthew 6:19-34

Paul and Peter often described our relationships as pilgrims, as strangers in a strange land, as ambassadors for Christ.

The word ambassador for Christ means someone who is sent by a king into a foreign country that is not his own on a mission that he's passing through swiftly to come back to his own place. When we surrender to Jesus, He invites us into a new life with Him. Today on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Skip shares his top teaching from the 80s, explaining a higher and better way of living that God calls you to. But before we begin, we want to tell you about an opportunity you have to see the Bible come alive right before your eyes. Have you ever tried to imagine the places in the Bible? You can study the scriptures where it all took place when you joined Skip for his upcoming trip to Israel in 2022. Make lifetime memories and deepen your faith as you see the Bible come alive before your eyes.

Find out more at inspirationcruises.com slash cabq. Now, speaking of Israel and the Middle East, here's a resource that introduces you to the key players in that region and shares why their decisions are significant for you. New York Times bestselling author Joel Rosenberg is now based in Jerusalem, and he's releasing the new nonfiction book, Enemies and Allies.

I've traveled with Joel to Middle East cities to meet with kings and crown princes. We sat together on the east lawn of the White House for the signing of the historic Abraham Accords, and I previewed his new book, Enemies and Allies. I can tell you it contains never before published quotes from behind closed door meetings with some of the most powerful and mysterious leaders in the Middle East. You will want to read this book. Enemies and Allies by Joel Rosenberg includes insights and analysis from the author's conversations with some of the most controversial leaders in the world. This is the first book of its kind. Almost nobody's ever had that chance to not just meet one of these major leaders, but to meet almost all of them.

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To give, visit connectwithskipp.com or call 800-922-1888. Okay, we're in Matthew chapter six today as we get into the teaching with Skip Heitzig. Now Jesus in speaking of four different types of hearts, he gave a parable and he says that the seed, which is the word of God, was sown into soil that had thorns and briars in it. He says, and the thorns grew and choked the word or choked that seed and it became unfruitful. And when Jesus expounded on his parable, he said that he was speaking of a person who hears the word of God, but the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the lust of other things choke the word and it becomes unfruitful. Now, this type of message is not popular in the United States of America.

We don't like to hear this a lot of the times. And again, I want to make very clear, money is not evil. Possessions are not wrong. The Bible never says money is the root of all evil. The Bible says the agape, the love, the lust and the complete domination of wanting money or wanting possession is the root of all evil because it breeds greed and therefore sin.

So possessions inherently are not wrong themselves. But Jesus talked about the deceitfulness of riches. Now, why are riches deceitful? Why would wealth or accumulating anything be deceitful? It's deceitful because a lot of times those people accumulate the wealth and they begin to trust in what they've accumulated more than the Lord. They get into a problem, they go, no problem, I've got money, I can buy my way out of it.

I've got resources. And so they're looking to their own resources than the Lord all the time. And so their eye of faith is not on the Lord anymore, it's on themselves because I have accumulated it and I can buy my way out of it.

No problem, I've got power. And so our eye of faith gets off the Lord and onto ourselves and our capabilities and therefore Jesus called them the deceitfulness of riches. They can be very, very deceiving. And all the time that Paul and Peter talked about riches, that it's not wrong to possess them, he always gave a warning to the people that had a lot because they could be turned in their heart attitude from the Lord to themselves. And so what is the result oftentimes the deceitfulness of riches?

The result is that the word gets choked, that person becomes choked out and he becomes unfruitful. You don't see him really as a dynamic witness to the Lord and so it can be deceitful. And you know what Satan wants out of you? He wants you to be an unfruitful Christian. See if he can get you to a place of stagnation, you know, not necessarily backsliding all the way, but just stagnant in the Lord.

It's a very effective place to have you because you'll be satisfied. I'm a Christian, I've got it, I'm fine. And you won't be witnessing necessarily to all the people that you know aren't saved. You won't be going up to other Christians and pouring salt in them and exhorting them and encouraging them in the Lord if he can make you unfruitful. So God would have us that we be fruitful and storing up treasures for ourselves in heaven. David in the Psalms declared if your riches increase in your life, don't set your heart upon them. Now here's an interesting point because as Christians, we work in our jobs and whatever we do, if we're diligent like we should be and we're devoted and we're loyal, the inevitable consequence is that riches will increase because we might get a raise because they'll see we're faithful, they might raise us up in a position.

And being diligent with business oriented things are going to make you more rich. And there's no problem with that, it's just the problem is when our heart gets set upon those things. And that's why Jesus said in verse 21, He said where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

And so we need to guard our hearts. Now, I want you to turn now to Luke chapter 12. Because in Luke chapter 12, Jesus is covering basically the same area of not being worried about food and raiment and possessions, but He covers it in a little different area.

Luke covers it from a different angle. He says in verse 15, He says, Take heed and beware of covetousness, for a man's life does not consist in the abundance of things which he possesses. Very interesting statement. And he spoke a parable unto them saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully. And he thought within himself, saying, Well, what shall I do?

Because I have no room where to bestow my fruits. And he said, This is what I will do. I will pull down my barns.

I will build greater. And there will I bestow all my fruits and all my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods.

Interesting way to talk to yourself, self. And I said, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years. Take your ease, eat, drink and be merry.

You know, I can trust in my riches now. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee. Then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided? In other words, you've been killing me and accumulated all these wealth, and now you're going to kick the bucket. And you know, who's going to somebody else is going to spend it for you all those years that you labored. Now somebody else is going to spend all your wealth. Verse 21.

So is he that lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God. So what should our attitude be toward material possession? Simply this. Have a light touch with the world. If you can maintain that, have a light touch with things of the world. Paul and Peter often described our relationships as pilgrims, as strangers in a strange land, as ambassadors for Christ.

The word ambassador for Christ is means someone who is sent by a king into a foreign country that is not his own on a mission that he's passing through swiftly to come back to his own place. So we need to see ourselves as pilgrims in this place, that this place is not really our home to be rooted down or to be really married to it. But to realize that we have a home, a city that Abraham said, not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, and looking for that kind of a city. Possessions are fine, but keep a light touch with them. You know there's a story about the guy who went to a national park in the summer, two week vacation, and he loaded up his truck full of wood and cement, and he was out there and he laid a foundation, he built a building, and he started building himself a large house.

Well his neighbor came by and he saw him, he was on vacation too, and he goes, Harry what are you doing? Well I'm building me a house, I want to be comfortable. Yeah I know that, but you're only going to be here for two weeks, you're only on vacation, that's stupid.

Why don't you just spend the time in a hotel? Well no, I mean I want to have the best, I want to be comfortable. That little silly analogy is sometimes a mirror for a lot of people, because a lot of times we're just so concerned about here, here and now, and the comforts of here and now, and creature comforts, laying that up for ourselves, treasures in heaven.

So the warning, don't lay up, treasures in heaven, but lay up, be in the habit, or be constantly treasuring up treasures before the Lord in heaven, where moth and where rust cannot corrupt. You know, the emphasis and the problem is that we live in a very materialistic world, and they influence us, everything that people do influences us, so we watch TV and we find out that we won't be a complete person unless we have this product, and so we've got to go out and get it. We've got to find that quick so that we can, you know, the outward appearance is so important to us. The flesh is very interesting, it's very important to people.

Very, very important, and so we spend a lot of time just on the outward, and we listen to a lot of the lies of Hollywood, that we need this, and that we need that, and we should accumulate this. And so the problem is that we live in this kind of a world, and so we have to separate our standards as far as our standards are concerned before the Lord. Now he says here in verse 22, the light of the body is the eye, therefore your eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light, but if your eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness, if therefore the light that is in you be darkness, how great is that darkness. Now, the eye was considered as the window pane of the body. Now the condition of a window determines the light that enters a room. If a window's all dingy and full of dirt, then it's going to be a very muddled light.

If the window's clean and clear, then it'll be perfect, beautiful illumination to light up everything in the whole room. And so your eye is, if your eye be single, Jesus said, your whole body shall be full of light, but if your eye be evil or divided, literally, double-focused, then you'll be full of darkness, and how great is that darkness. In other words, Jesus is saying have a single focus on the Lord. A lot of times we have one eye on the treasures in the world and one eye on heaven.

We expect to be able to sow to the flesh but reap heaven. And so Jesus is saying have a single focus on the Lord. Don't have a double vision.

Don't walk around with double vision. A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. And so he's speaking in the same context. And then he says in verse 24, no man can serve two masters, for either he will hate one and love the other or else he will hold to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and mammon. He says no man can serve two masters.

Literally, no man can be a slave to two masters. The Bible often calls Christians slaves or servants of God. Paul said, Paul a slave, literally a bond slave of Jesus Christ, Peter a bond slave of Jesus Christ. And although Jesus came up to his disciples and said from this day forward, I won't call you slaves, I call you friends. There was something about the term slave that they love to apply to themselves. They love to call themselves slaves for Jesus Christ. There's an old saying, to be his slave is to be a king. Bob Dylan wrote a song, you've got to serve somebody. It could be the devil or it could be the Lord, but you have to serve somebody. And that's so true.

There's only two ways. If you're not serving the Lord, Jesus said you're serving the enemy. And so no man can be a slave to two masters. And the two masters oftentimes are our old man and our new man. We have two people pulling at us. Yes, Lord, I want you.

Yes, world, I want you. Being double minded. We can't serve two masters. You're going to love one and you're going to hate the other.

You're going to hold the one and you're going to despise the other. Now many Christians are in this position, I think today, of wanting the best of both worlds. Want to, you know, one foot in the ditch and one foot on the road. I want to serve you, Lord, but gosh, all those beautiful things, those are just as important to me in the world.

And that kind of a person has to ultimately make a decision. It's going to come down to it eventually where he's going to either have to serve the Lord and follow the Lord or divorce himself from the Lord and follow his own flesh and his own lust. And if you're in that state today of loving the world and loving the Lord, that's a backslidden state. If you as a Christian are not more turned on for Jesus Christ and bearing more fruit than you were when you first knew the Lord and you were excited about Him, something's wrong.

We've talked about it before. We've talked about how young Christians get all excited in two weeks, praise the Lord, Lord, so good. And the old Christians go, young Christian, you know, he'll get out of it one of these days. He'll see that it's just not that. That's tragic because we should be excited about the Lord.

And if you're not, then something is wrong and I'd suggest that you're in a backslidden state. And the Bible says to return to your first love. And that's what we need to do.

So we can't serve two masters. And notice in verse 20, going back to verse 20, he says, lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven. And then in verse 21, where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. You know, you can always tell where a person's at. It's so easy to tell where a person is at with the Lord.

It's just by what he treasures, what his priorities are, what he lays up, what's important to him. And wherever is important to you, you'll find yourself giving your time to that specific thing, whether it be the Lord or whether it be your own desires. Wherever your treasure is, your heart will be also. And the heart, as we've discovered before, is so important. The Bible says to guard your heart with all diligence because out of your heart proceed the issues of life. And we need to be guarding our hearts. And the thing is, is that if God is indeed our all, that we always say, don't say, Lord, you're my all, Lord, you're my everything. We sing it every Sunday morning. If the Lord is indeed your all, then you will always be satisfied.

If he is, you're all. And contentment is a very interesting thing because the Bible says that we should be always giving thanks for all things, that we should be content in the Lord. And that's a good question this morning. How content are you? Are you content this morning, if you have much or if you have little? Francis Schaeffer in his book, True Spirituality, says something real briefly about contentment. He says, When I lack proper contentment, either I have forgotten that God is God or I have ceased to be submissive to him. In other words, if I'm not content in the Lord, either I've forgotten that God is the Lord and he's sovereign and he's ruling my life or I've ceased to do what he wants to do in my life. I've ceased to submit myself to him. He says, God has made us with proper desires, but if there is not a proper contentment on my part, to this extent I am in revolt against God.

And of course the revolt is the whole central problem of sin. When I lack proper contentment, either I have forgotten that he is God again or I've ceased to be submissive to him. A quiet disposition and a heart giving thanks at any moment is the real test to the extent of which we love God at that moment.

So it's a good test. Ask yourself at any given moment, how content am I? Am I happy? Am I content in the Lord? Am I deriving my pleasure from the Lord?

Is he the source of my joy? Because we're your treasures, are we your heart be also? And then Jesus goes on and he says in verse 25, Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life what you shall eat, what you shall drink, and yet for your body what you shall put on. Is not the life more than meat and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air, they don't sow, neither do they reap.

Are they not much better than you? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubic unto his stature? And then he says in verse 28, And why do you take thought for raiment?

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, they toil not, neither do they spin. And yet I say, Solomon in all his glory was not even clothed or arrayed like one of these. So now he's giving a little word to the not so rich, just to the people who have and worry about basic necessities in life. And a lot of us fit into that category. Are we going to pay the rent, you know?

Are we going to have enough money to buy dog food next month? You know, which, you know, just the basic things in life. Now, people who do not have as much as rich people have, have the same temptation as rich people, because they might covet what other people have.

And they might lust after those things, not because they want more, because they don't have any and they want and they want and they desire and they can get very bitter. And so the Lord says, take no anxious thought. And he's speaking here of anxiety in verse 25. Don't be anxious. Don't be overly concerned about your basic needs for a few reasons.

One, your father knows you have need of them and he's going to provide and he gives the examples of the birds. You know, I've asked some doctors about this, about anxiety. I said, what can anxiety, what can being anxious and worry do to a person physically, biologically? He said, it can create stress, make a person tense, very irritable.

It can cause shortness of breath, heart pain, nausea, diarrhea, sweating, dizziness, all sorts of physical manifestations. And it's awfully hard to be around people who worry a lot. And Jesus here in verse 27 says, which of you by taking thought can add one cubic 18 inches to his stature? You know, somebody worrying on too short.

He's giving these kind of humorous examples. Which one of you by worrying can add another 18 inches to his height? What good has worrying ever done for you? And I know people all the time who worry, they go, oh, I'm just, I feel too young. I'm just too young. And they're worried that they're always too young. And so they want to dress up and be older. And a few years later, they, I'm too old. And so they put the makeup on so that, you know, the face way back like this, so that they look young and they're always worried about who they are.

They're like the little guy who's worried that he's short and he can't add another 18 inches to his stature. Always worried about who they are. So Jesus says, don't be anxious. Don't have anxiety in your heart toward these things.

Be very carefree. Anxiety can destroy you as a Christian. And Jesus is saying here that worry is sin. Unnecessary, unnecessary worry is sin.

Anxiety won't, won't do a thing for you. I believe that Jesus Christ wants us as Christians to live very carefree lives. Not by confessing things positively and everything. I claim that. I claim that.

But by just trusting in the Lord. And Jesus gives a very humorous example here. He says, look at the birds of the field. He says, they don't toil or spin. You know, that's sort of funny. You don't see the birds, you know, put on their little hats every day and get their lunches and go out to work.

Go out to the granaries and start working. You just don't see that because your Heavenly Father knows they have need of those things and He'll provide for them. In Deuteronomy chapter 8, when God took Israel through the wilderness, God told Israel that He was testing them for 40 years in the wilderness. To prove them, He said, to show them that man doesn't live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. God was trying to let Israel know that He could provide for them on a day-to-day basis and the Lord would want to prove to you that God can provide for you on a day-to-day basis.

Like we talked about last week. So often we pray, Lord, give us this month, our monthly bread. God, give us this year, our yearly bread. Lord, provide for us in advance so we don't have to worry about it. No, one day at a time. Take no thought what you're going to eat, what you're going to drink, what you're going to put on. I think that a lot of Christians, again, fall into this category of worrying about things.

I see people all the time, I don't know what's going to happen, I'm just worried. And they've got a right to be in the natural realm but hey, your Father specializes in miracles. I mean, that's His bag, that's His deal. It's no big deal for God to provide for you. You know, it's so easy for us to lay hands on somebody that has a cold.

Lord, we pray that you heal their cold. But when it comes to somebody that has cancer, oh Lord, I don't want to bother you, I know you're busy. This is a real big one.

Oh Lord, I need $150 or I need $10,000. We can trust the Lord to provide for us $5, but when it comes to maybe $10,000, what do we need? But God's big. Turn to Proverbs with me, chapter 3. If you fall into this category today, this scripture will give you great comfort. In Proverbs 3, we find the cure for worry.

What's the prescription, doctor? It's found in Proverbs 3. In verse 5, trust in the Lord with, how much? All your heart.

Maybe 50%, no, 90% no, all of your heart. And lean not to your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths. It says, be not wise in your own eyes, fear the Lord and depart from evil. Now notice this, it shall be healthy to thy navel. The word navel means nerves. In other words, if you are trusting the Lord on a day by day basis, you cannot have a nervous breakdown.

It'll be healthy to your nerves. You'll be trusting the Lord, you know that God will provide. The Bible says perfect love casts out all fear.

What does that mean? It means when I come to a position in my life that I realize that God loves me so much that He will never fail me, that God's perfect love will cast all fear out. I will never fear again once I realize how much God loves me. And that's what we want to bring home to you today, that God loves you and that He's your Father and that you're precious unto Him.

That's Skip Heitzig with a message from the series Sermon on the Mount. Right now, we want to let you know about a unique opportunity you have to pursue biblical studies in a way that works with your schedule. Speculation about the end times is at an all-time high, and Christianity is the only faith that devotes nearly one-third of Scripture to future events. Learn about the future from the authority of the Bible when you take a study of the end times at Calvary College. With evening classes on campus or online, you can get an education in biblical studies that will impact your spiritual life for the rest of your life.

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800-922-1888. Thank you. Coming up tomorrow, Skip Heitzig shares his top teaching from the 90s, explaining just how powerful your words are and how you can use them for good. Words are powerful.

They have weight. Words get inside of us. They affect our emotions. Not only do they affect our emotions, they affect our relations, the way we feel about other people. Hey, did you hear about so and so? Really? Yeah, I heard. They affect the way you feel about others. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.