If you would turn with me to Matthew chapter 6 verses 19 through 24. We've been making our way through Christ's Sermon on the Mount. The remaining verses of chapter 6 address the Christian's attitude towards things of the world.
Things like money and wealth, reputation, relationships, use of time. In fact, all of the aspects of our existence that concern this immediate lifetime. And we're going to see in the remaining verses of chapter 6 that there are two types of errors we tend to fall into concerning our attitude towards this world. And Jesus deals with both of them.
In verses 19 through 24, our text this morning, He addresses the issue of love for the world. This tends to be the particular struggle of those who possess a lot of this world's wealth. Although that's not always the case. The other issue which Jesus will address in verses 25 to the end of the chapter is that of worry or anxiety over the lack of wealth. And this, it seems, is often a tendency of the poor.
Although again, that's not always the case. But both attitudes, loving this world and being anxious about our life in this world, both of these expose inadequacies in our love for God. So today, we're looking at the danger of placing too much value, too much affection on worldly things. And in these verses, Jesus calls us to a single-hearted devotion to things of eternal value.
Let's read it together. And if you would stand again in honor of God's Word, Matthew 6, verses 19 through 24. Jesus says, Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, where thieves break in and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal.
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. 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 that darkness. 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.
Let's pray. Lord, we're not very good at praising the value of things. We certainly have a tendency to walk by sight and sight, especially the sight of sinners like us is so often misleading.
Lord, we also have this heart problem that likes to create idols, that takes pleasure in things that cannot bring lasting joy. So help us today to be able to get honest with our own hearts and see ourselves as You see us, and then help us over the coming days and weeks to begin transferring our stock, our affections and priorities and goals in our very hearts from idols of our own making to You, the eternal source of all lasting joy. Holy Spirit, open our minds now to understand Your Word. Open our hearts to embrace that Word and conform our wills to submit to Your Word. I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.
May we be seated. So in our text today, Jesus takes up the subject of treasure. He shows us that what we treasure, what we love, what we value is really a barometer of the heart. A person's affections reveal a person's heart. But not only do our treasures reveal the heart, they also shape the heart. What we give our affections to actually steers and directs our life.
And so the message of our text today is this. Be careful what you love, because your life will be governed by what you love the most. Be careful what you love, because your entire life will be governed by what you love the most. In these verses, Jesus defines two types of treasure and then He gives us three effects that treasure has on people. And in all of this, He's warning us to invest our affections wisely.
Choose carefully what you love. Let's consider first the two types of treasure. We see them identified in verses 19 and 20. Jesus says, do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal. So Jesus begins His discussion of the Christian's relationship to wealth by speaking of laying up for ourselves. This laying up for ourselves is an investment term.
It means to make what you have even greater, to increase something for the future, to invest in it. Now in relation to this investing for the future, Christ gives a negative command and a positive command. He first says, don't lay up for yourselves treasures on earth.
And why is that? Well, because the more you lay up of this world's goods, the more you will lose at some point in the future. And then He tells us, don't lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven. And again, the reason is because the more we lay up for that day, for eternity, the greater our return, the greater our reward will be.
This isn't hard to understand. Jesus is simply saying, be wise in your investing by minimizing risk, maximizing gain. Don't buy stock in that which is susceptible to rust and moth damage and thievery.
Buy stock in that which will endure for all eternity. Now I think it's pretty clear that Christ is using the term treasure in this passage figuratively. He's not just referring to money or possessions or literal investments of wealth.
Certainly the metaphor includes those things. But if treasure is something that can also be laid up in heaven, then it must be something that includes far more than mere material wealth. Jesus is not giving out free financial advice here.
He's giving moral advice. He's not so much concerned with our wealth as He is with our attitude towards wealth. So the concept of treasure in these verses refers broadly to anything that we value, anything that captivates our desires and our affections. Well, according to Christ's teaching, there are two types of treasure that vie for our affections. The first is earthly treasure. What is earthly treasure?
Well, several things. But at the very least, earthly treasure includes anything that is sinful, anything that is a violation of God's law. When we treasure sin in our heart, when we hold on to attitudes or actions that are rebellious against God, we're laying up for ourselves earthly treasures, treasures that will incur the judgment of God on our lives.
Now this should be obvious. But let me mention a sin that is particularly subtle and characteristic of those who lay up treasures on earth. It's the sin of worldliness. The Bible describes this world as being at enmity with God. John 15, 19, for example, if you were of the world, the world would love you as its own, but because you were not of the world, the world hates you. So there's a conflict between God and the world system, and therefore between Christians and the world system. Galatians 4, 9 says, but now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world whose slaves you want to be once more? James 4, 4 alludes to this as well.
Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. So worldliness is the sin of adopting the thought processes and attitudes and behavior of people who hate God. And what makes this sin so difficult to identify in our lives is the fact that these thought processes and attitudes and actions are all perfectly acceptable in society.
They're not the kinds of sins you go to jail for. Most people aren't going to condemn you for being worldly because worldliness fits in with the world. Now, when I say worldliness, you probably have a list in your mind of things that qualify. Maybe your list includes doing illicit drugs, drinking alcohol, listening to secular music, watching R-rated movies.
I don't know what's on your list. The ironic thing, though, is that our list rarely includes the things of which we're guilty, right? It seems to only include things that we condemn in others, but church worldliness is anything you tolerate that fights against what is true and righteous and holy. Pursuing popularity at school or at work to the point of compromising what you know to be true is an example of worldliness. Being more concerned with outward appearance than with the inward condition of your heart is worldliness.
Allowing the world's way of thinking to influence the way you think about truth or beauty or morality or education or money or anything else is worldliness. And when we adopt the world's way of thinking and acting opposed to God's way, we are laying up treasures on earth. So earthly treasure includes anything that is sin, including the subtle sin of worldliness, but earthly treasure also includes things that are not permanent. Jesus warns us that the kinds of treasures that can be destroyed, damaged or lost, that's what He's talking about when He says earthly treasures. Certainly, this is true of material possessions that we own. Cars never get less rusty, do they, with age.
Clothes don't look better with the passing of time. Thieves will always be there to lighten our load. One theologian said that moth and rust in his passage represent all those agencies and processes that cause earthly treasures to diminish in value and finally to cease completely to serve their purpose. Earthly treasures are, by their very nature, not permanent.
And so it's foolish to invest one's affections in these things that are not permanent. I think this reality is obvious when it comes to material things like cars and clothes and money, but it's just as true when it comes to earthly treasures that are not material, that are immaterial. For example, we may treasure some skill or knowledge that we possess. But you know, skills can be lost due to health problems, knowledge, education can be lost through mental illness and age.
We may treasure our reputation, but reputations can be tarnished and maligned. Our treasure may be some hobby or area of expertise and yet we find that in ten years time we've lost interest in the things that once captivated our hearts. The ultimate thief, of course, is death. There will come a day when every earthly treasure, material or immaterial, will be no more. Earthly treasures are temporary. The apostle John warns us of the temporary nature of earthly treasures in 1 John 2. He says, do not love the world or the things in the world for all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, the pride and possessions, is not from the Father, but is from the world and the world is passing away along with its desires. So earthly treasures include things that are sinful, it includes things that are temporary and passing, but thirdly, earthly treasures are things that do not advance the kingdom of God. There are plenty of activities that in and of themselves are perfectly fine for Christians to be engaged in. The question is, do these things advance the kingdom of God?
And if they don't, should they dominate our lives to the extent that they do? Some of us were without power for a couple of days this past week. During that power outage, did you ever head over to your laptop or your device to just sort of veg out for a bit only to remember that you didn't have any power or internet or access to your devices and there's that sinking feeling of, oh no, I can't waste my time mindlessly binging on that show. I think sometimes God takes our modern conveniences and addictions away from us just to show us how much time and energy we're wasting on things that won't advance the kingdom of God. It's laying up treasures on earth. Finally, I would say that earthly treasures are things that diminish our affection for God. And this is related, of course, to all the other things I've mentioned. Anything that makes me love God less and want spiritual intimacy with Him less is an earthly treasure.
And I need to be very careful not to give my life to those kinds of things. Anything that is in competition with my love for God is an earthly treasure and is not a wise investment of my affection and love. Christians, the Bible describes us as pilgrims in this world system. Our citizenship is not ultimately in this world.
It's a heavenly citizenship. And if we live in such a way as to invest all of our time and energy into the things of this earth, things that diminish our love for God will be greatly disappointed when the rust and the moths and the thieves of this world take away the very things on which our happiness is resting. We are fools to invest our hearts and lives in the temporary, in the empty, in the godless treasure of this earth. But there's another type of treasure. Jesus calls it treasure in heaven.
This type of treasure is the exact opposite of earthly treasure. Where earthly treasure is temporary, heavenly treasure lasts forever. Where earthly treasure diminishes my appetite for the good, the true, the beautiful, heavenly treasure increases my affection for God.
Where earthly treasure advances my own temporal interests in the here and now, heavenly treasure advances the kingdom of God both in the here and now and in the world to come. Now we need to be careful not to over spiritualize our pursuit of heavenly treasure by thinking that there's no material or temporal component to it. In fact, in the same way that immaterial things can be used in earthly sinful ways, so material things can be used in heavenly spiritual ways. I mentioned earlier how we often use our devices to waste time.
Does that mean that we should never use computers or the internet? No, there are valid ways, heavenly ways to use things like electronics. It's possible to use material things that in themselves are temporary to advance eternal causes, to lay up treasure in heaven. I can use these modern inventions, for example, to make myself a more efficient servant in God's kingdom. I can use my money and wealth to achieve eternal objectives. It's interesting to note that in Luke's parallel passage to Matthew 6, which is Luke chapter 12, Luke gets very specific about what heavenly treasure looks like and he describes this heavenly treasure in terms of us selling our possessions, making a profit, and then using those profits to provide for the needy, the destitute. The point is that in our pursuit of heavenly treasure, we will use even our earthly possessions.
In fact, we ought to use every blessing God has given, our time, our intellect, our influence, our wealth, our spiritual gifts, all of it to achieve eternal goals like serving other people, evangelizing, helping the poor, exposing wickedness, advancing righteousness. This is what laying up treasure in heaven looks like. Heavenly treasures are being stored up when a man labors diligently at his job and then gives Christ the credit when others commend him. Heavenly treasures are being stored up when a mother invests her life in raising kids that grow up to be God-fearing, God-oriented adults.
Eternal investments are being made when a homebound Christian spends hours in private prayer before God, praying for God's kingdom to advance, or when a successful businessman is generous with his wealth to help the needy in the name of Christ. Laying up heavenly treasure then requires that we see ourselves as mere stewards of the things we possess. We don't cling to them. We don't let these things become the center of our existence. Our resources are not to be constantly on our minds, absorbing our lives. We hold these things loosely with the state of, as one pastor described it, blessed detachment. The stuff of this life doesn't govern me.
I govern it. And so this is what we're to invest our lives and affections in. Well, Christ has laid out two options. We're either investing our lives in that which is earthly, or we're investing our lives in that which is heavenly, in what is temporary or what is eternal.
Those are the only two options. And the reason this is so significant is because the option we choose will have a profound effect not only on our labor and influence on others, it will have a profound effect on us. And that's the focus of verses 21-24. Jesus in fact mentions three effects that the things we treasure have on our lives. Remember Christ's objective in these verses is to communicate the need for us to be careful what we love because our life will be governed by what we love the most. You need to choose your treasure wisely because first of all, your treasure directs your heart. Your treasure directs your heart.
Look at verse 21. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. So verses 19-20 have given the common sense reason for choosing our treasure wisely. We don't want to invest in something that will ultimately be lost or destroyed.
That's just common sense. But now in verse 21, Christ gives us the moral reason. We ought to be wise in what we give ourselves to because God measures the heart and our treasure has a powerful and direct influence over our heart. Heart here refers to our affections, our emotions, our desires. To give your heart to something is to desire that thing above all else. And Jesus is saying that what we invest in and what we desire are inseparably linked.
The one informs and shapes the other. That which you invest time and money and energy into becomes the thing you desire the most. So choose carefully how you spend your life. Because what you spend your life on will become your chief desire. Your treasure directs your heart.
But secondly, you must choose your treasure wisely because your treasure informs your mind. Verses 22-23, 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? I've often read these verses and felt like they seemed out of place. What do they have to do with what Christ is talking about here? I think what's going on is that Jesus is illustrating a point by drawing an analogy, a comparison, much like the way He would often tell a parable to illustrate a truth. Verses 22 and 23 are like a parable or an analogy showing us that our treasure informs our mind.
We try to explain the analogy. Jesus says that the eye is a lamp for the body. Now that doesn't mean that the eye is a source of light, right?
It means the eye is the bringer of light. The eye is what interfaces the body with the outside world. It observes what's out there and it feeds that information into the body so that the body can respond appropriately. If the eye does this task properly, the whole body is benefited.
If it fails, then the body is at risk. I think that in this analogy, the eye represents the mind of a person. The mind is that faculty which feeds us information that leads to the decisions we make, the actions we engage in, the attitudes that we hold. Jesus says if your eye is healthy, your whole body gets accurate information. Likewise, if your mind is healthy, if it's accurately interfacing with reality, then it's able to direct you in the way you should go. It's very interesting that the word translated as healthy here literally means single. An eye that has singleness of vision, not double vision, is a benefit to the whole body.
Likewise, a mind that is not double minded but is singly devoted to what is true and good and beautiful is a mind that aids the whole person. This singleness of mind reminds me of a memory I have from years back. When I was young, I competed in track and field. One of the events I competed in was the high jump. I remember learning how to do the high jump.
It was right in the middle of the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, if you remember those. I was glued to the TV watching these world class jumpers leap over the bar at seven plus feet. What sticks in my mind is the focus of these guys just before they jumped. They would stare down that bar and you could see them playing out the jump in their mind before they ever took the first step.
There were thousands of people watching them, cameras in their face, but all they could see was that bar in front of them. That's a single eye. Singleness of devotion and purpose. Folks, a single mind is a mind that doesn't mix truth with error. It's a mind that sees things clearly from a heavenly perspective. It sees life through a God-ward lens and isn't distracted by the noise of this world. On the other hand, an evil mind, like an unhealthy eye, is darkened and cannot perform its function like it ought to. In the description of the downward progression of sin given in Romans 1, one of the steps towards reprobation is God giving people up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. So the mind, for good or for bad, directs one's life.
If my toe hits a table leg in the dark, it's not my toe's fault, it's my eye's fault. If your mind compromises truth, your entire life will be a compromise of the truth to your own peril and destruction. And the point is this, your mind, which has such a strong influence on all of life, is informed by what you treasure. Your mind is informed by what you treasure, what you invest yourself in, what you give yourself to.
Your mind will bend over backwards to preserve and protect and pursue that which you love the most. So choose your treasure wisely because it will inform your mind. Thirdly, choose your treasure wisely because your treasure enslaves your will. Your treasure enslaves your will. Verse 24 says, No one can serve two masters, for he either 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. Now let me just point out that the word money here in verse 24, or mammon as it's translated in the King James Version, is an Aramaic word, not a Greek word. It refers to worldly wealth, and it always has a strongly negative connotation. So Jesus isn't talking about money in the sense of just currency.
That's neutral. He's talking about wealth in all of its forms as an idol of the heart. He's not condemning mere money. He's condemning materialism. He's condemning loving stuff more than God. So don't think that just because you don't have a lot of money, you aren't susceptible to the warning that's being given here, or that by having a lot of money, somehow you're inherently evil.
That's not his point. Again, Jesus is addressing primarily our attitude towards temporal things. And I think Jesus' point in this last verse is that whatever we treasure ends up becoming the God we serve.
Everything else in our life will have to bow the knee and surrender to that which we give ourselves to the most. We see this dramatically illustrated in the lives of two apostles. The first is Judas. Judas represents the slave of mammon. Wealth was his treasure. And everything else, his ministry, his share in Jesus, his very life had to make way for wealth. On the other hand, look at the apostle Paul.
He represents the slave of God. Paul's testimony was this in Philippians 3. Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.
He was a slave to God. Brothers and sisters, whatever you love the most will run your life. Whatever you love the most will run your life. It will control your heart. It will tell your mind what to believe. It will make your will its slave.
The question is, will you love what God loves or will you love the passing pleasures of sin? It cannot be both and. It has to be either or. The Greek philosopher Aristotle pointed out that there is no mean or halfway point between two opposites. Opposites are opposites. They don't mix.
We somehow think we can get away with being double minded. We can love a little bit of light and a little bit of darkness at the same time, but that's simply not possible. There is only space for one ultimate love in the human soul. It's got to be either heaven or earth, light or darkness, God or mammon.
It cannot be both. Church, what this means is that you cannot relegate your walk with God to some spiritual sphere as if your Christianity has no bearing on the here and now. Either your love for God will take over and eradicate your love for earthly treasures or your love for earthly treasures will take over and eradicate your love for God. The million dollar question then is, what do you love the most?
What do you love the most? John Calvin said, wherever men imagine the greatest happiness to be, there they are surrounded and confined. If honor is reckoned to bring the greatest happiness, the minds of men become entirely occupied with ambition. If money brings happiness, covetousness will predominate. If pleasure, it will be impossible to prevent men from seeking into brutal indulgence. We all have a natural desire to pursue happiness. The consequence is that false imaginations carry us away in every direction.
But if we were honestly and firmly convinced that our happiness is in heaven, it would be easy for us to trample upon the world, to despise the earthly blessings which fascinate most men and to rise towards heaven. You know, one of the key principles of good investing is to diversify. That way, if one investment goes bad, at least you're protecting part of your wealth by having it spread out in several different types of investments. Folks, that principle may work in the financial realm, but when it comes to our commitment to God, there is to be no diversifying.
We don't cover ourselves. We don't hedge our bets just in case God doesn't come through. With God, it has to be all or nothing. And so in light of Jesus' teaching in these verses, we need to ask ourselves, how can I intentionally lay up treasure in heaven? Certainly, consider your use of time and money, but don't forget to evaluate all the compartments that make up your life. Does eternity determine my career choices, my marriage habits, my practice of child-rearing, my entertainment choices, my friendships, my ambitions, how I dress, how I talk, how I think, how I reason? If I'm going to live for heaven, I've got to evaluate every detail of my life in terms of its submission to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and set my heart on seeking God no matter what, no matter when, no matter how.
Be careful what you love because your life will be governed for good or for bad by what you love the most. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for the warning that you've given us in these verses. Now please help us to make wise choices and to give ourselves to those things that cannot be lost or destroyed, to things that will not destroy our souls. Fill us with a single-hearted devotion to you and may that devotion be reflected in a life that in every sphere is spent for your glory. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.
