God OR money
Matthew 6:19-24
So as you can all see we looking at money this morning. And you might be wondering: why has Kyle chosen to speak about money? This isn’t part of a series we doing. Its not the next passage in a book that we working through. This is a once off topical sermon. And I’ve chosen to do it on money. Why?
Well I wanna make it clear right at the beginning that its not because I’m after your money. I didn’t sit down and look at our financial situation and the bond we need to pay off and the things we wanting to do. And say: ah we need money for them. I better do a sermon on money.
No. I’m not trying to manipulate you to give us money. There’s another reason we looking at money this morning. If you look at the Bible. And if you look at the teaching of Jesus. Its amazing how often it talks about money. Over and over again this topic comes up. And the reason it comes up so often is because this is a crucial part of our Christian discipleship. How do we handle our money? We don’t like to talk about money. But we mustn’t avoid it because this is part of service of God.
But even more than that. The reason the Bible speaks so much about money is because it has an unusually strong ability to draw your heart from God. And to blind you to the light and the glory and the treasure in the gospel. And I don’t want that to happen. I want us to be a church thats devoted to God. With undivided devotion. And that’s why we talking about money.
And so you mustn’t sit there think I’m trying to take from you. Take your money. Take your happiness. Take. Take. Take.This sermon isn’t about taking. Its about giving to you. The true goodness and contentment that can only come from God.
Lets pray and ask for his help.
Father we wanna be devoted to You. We know that that’s the real meaning and purpose of our lives. And so that’s where true contentment and peace is found. We thank You that Your Word gives us instructions about how we can find that. So please open our eyes to understand Your Word now. And enable us to serve You with undivided devotion. In Jesus Name Amen
Some things in life are mutually exclusive. If you have one, you can’t have the other. For example, you can’t be hot and cold at the same time. You can’t support the Stormers and the Bulls. You can’t be in the light and in the dark.
Sometimes when Jen and I are reading in bed at night and 1 of us decides its time to go to sleep, but the other one wants to keep reading, then we wish we could have light and darkness. But we have to make a decision. Either we’ll be in the light or we’ll be in the dark. We can’t have both.
These are examples of mutually exclusive things. And in our passage this morning, Jesus gives us a decision between two things that are mutually exclusive. You can see it right at the end of verse 24. The final sentence. You cannot serve both God and money.
And I want you to notice. Jesus isn’t giving us a command here? He doesn’t say you may not. He says you cannot.
He doesn’t say stop serving God and money. He says ur are not able to serve God and money.
And that’s the main thing I wanna show you this morning. I wanna convince you that both God and money require undivided devotion. Whichever one you choose, it’ll take over ur whole life, and there’ll be no space left for the other.
Now let me just give you the context of this passage. Its part of the sermon on the Mount. And in Matthew chapter 6, Jesus warns us about 2 main things that can distract us from being completely devoted to God. In verses 1-18, the distraction is the praise of men. If we looking for praise from men, then that’ll distract us. We must focus on our reward from God. And then in verse 19-34, the distraction is wealth. We mustn’t think we can serve God and wealth. If we choose to serve one, we’ll have to reject the other. And so this morning we just gona focus on verses 19-24 and I want you to see 3 decisions we need to make if we wanna choose God rather than money.
I think most of us here would say we wanna serve God rather than money. But how do we make sure we doing that? How do we put that in practice?
Well here three practical decisions we need to make
1stly where we gona store our treasure?
2ndly, where we gona focus our eyes?
3rdly, who’s gona be our master?
Repeat
So Firstly, we need to decide where we gona store our treasure? Verses 19-21
Jesus starts by giving us some investment advice in verses 19-20. And its very wise advice. Thekey to making a wise investment is to put your money where you know firstly it’s gona be safe and then hopefully its also gona make a profit. Only a fool will invest his money in a place where he knows it’s gona be lost.
And so look at the advice Jesus gives. Verse 19. “Do not store up for yourselves treasure on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.”
This is very simple investment advice. You don’t have to be very bright to understand it. Imagine ur life in 120 years time. In 120 years, I can guarantee you, every bit of treasure uv invested on earth u’ll have lost it. Only what uv invested in heaven will remain. And so please listen to Jesus’ advice. Don’t invest ur treasure on earth. Investit in heaven. It’s wise investment advice.
But now I want you to see that this isn’t the main point Jesus is making here. He isn’t just giving us investment advice. You see, actually Jesus isn’t primarilyconcerned about what’ll happen to our treasures. That’s not His main concern. Jesus is primarily concerned about what’ll happen to our hearts.
I remember once having a conversation with Bongo and we were talking about how the Bible’s so full ofcommands about our hearts. For example, It says: You must love God with all your heart. It says: You must fix your heart on heaven. But Bongo was lamenting to me about how difficult it is toobey commands like that? You see It’s easy to obey a command that just speaks about ur outward actions. If the bible says go to church, you just get up and go to church. If the Bible says give 10 percent, you just give 10 percent. Its easy to change ur outward actions. But to actually change the desires of your heart. How do you do that?
Well these verses show us 1 way how we can influence our hearts?
Look at verse 21. Notice why Jesus says we must store up treasure in heaven. Verse 21: for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. You see, Jesus isn’t just giving us investment advice here. He’s teaching us how to influence our hearts.
Dyou want a heart that’s fixed on heaven, then make sure your treasure is stored in heaven. Don’t think you can store up treasures for yourself here on earth and still have a heart that’s fixed on heaven. You heart will move to where your treasure is.
And so I wanna speak especially to those of us here who are rich.
Can you see how dangerous it is to be rich?
If you own treasures here on earth, your heart will constantly be moving in the direction of those treasures. Concerned about your shares in the stock-market? Concerned about the rust in your holiday home. Concerned about whether someone will steal your fancy new car.
You’ll constantly be tempted to think about such things.
And therefore this is the great danger for a rich person. Its not only that you gona lose all these treasures that uv stored up for yourself here on earth. That would be okay, if you yourself were still gona be saved. But the real danger is that your heart will become invested in these treasures.
And so it wont only be your treasures that get destroyed. Your heart will be destroyed along with them.[i]
If you store up treasure on earth, ur putting ur heart in great danger.
And so this is the first decision you need to make. Where you gona store ur treasure. Don’t think you can store up your treasure on earth and still have a heart that is fixed on heaven. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Then Secondly, you need to decide where ur gona focus ur eyes. Verses 22-23
In verse 22 Jesus uses the illustration of an eye.
“The eye is the lamp of the body.” (SLOW)
And it’s quite a simple illustration if you think about it
Imagine ur in a room full of light. There’s light all around you. Your body’s surrounded in light. It doesn’t matter how much light there is around you. The only way that light will enter your body is if your eyes are working properly. If your eyes are bad. Then your whole body. Your whole world will be full of darkness.
If you take a blind man and you put him in a bright room. The brightest possible room. Its not gona bring light into his body. Because his eyes are bad. You see Light can’t enter your body through any other body part. Your eye is the lamp of your body.
So look at verse 22 again.
“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.”
That’s the illustration. But now the question is. What’s His point? Why does Jesus use this illustration here? How does itfit in with what He’s been saying?
In verses 19-21 He’s been talking about money.
In verse 24 He talks about money. So surely this must have some link with money.
And if you look carefully at verse 21 He’s just made the point that money influences your heart. And in verse 24 He continues to talk about the devotion of your heart. Is your heart devoted to money?
And so surely this illustration must have something to do with a heart that’s devoted to money.
And so this is what I think Jesus is doing. He’s using the illustration of a physical eye as an illustration of the eyes of your heart.
Just like your eye is the vehicle (the only vehicle) forphysical light to enter your body.
In the same way your heart is the vehicle for spiritual light to enter your life. And so if your heart becomes dark. Completely absorbed with money and how to make money. And earthly treasure. Then there’s no other way for light to enter your life. Your life will become very dark.
Verse 23 again.
if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness.
You see money’s got a peculiar ability to darken your life.
1 Timothy 6 verse 9 says,
“People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.”
Let me just give a few examples of how money can darken your life.
Firstly, it makes you anxious. As we’ve just seen, earthly treasure is never secure. Just think about Brexit. And what its doing to our economy. There’s this uncertainty and insecurity at the moment. That’s what money brings.
Secondly, it removes your love. You so busy trying to store up money for yourself. That you lose your love for other people. Jesus said its more blessed to give than to receive. You miss out on that blessing if you focused on earthly treasure.
Thirdly, even worse than that it blinds you to God. You don’t see what a privilege it is to know God and to love Him and to serve Him. That’s the greatest blessing in the world. But you miss out on that if you just focused on money.
And fourthly, and probably most scarily. Its deceptive. You don’t recognize that its a problem.
Tim Keller tells the story about when he did a series on the seven deadly sins. And he advertised each talk beforehand. He said: next week we looking at the subject of pride. Next week we looking at the subject of lust. So that people could know what they coming to.
And his wife warned him. Watch. When you come to the subject of greed. Your attendance’s gona be right down.
And she was right! The attendance was right down when they looked at greed.
And the reason he says, why this was the case, isn’t because people find this subject offensive. They don’t wanna talk about greed.
No its because they don’t think this is something that they struggle with.
Of all the sins that people come and confess to their pastors, this is probably the least common. I can’t think of anytime someone’s confessed this to me.
You see its obvious to know if you struggling with many other sins. Like adultery or anger. But not so with greed. Most people think: this isn’t a problem for me.
That’s part of the darkness of a love for money. It blinds you that this is a problem.
And so lets apply this to ourselves. In the first point the application was mainly forrich people. If you own riches. That’s a great danger. It’ll influence the desires of your heart.
But now can you see that the application is also for poor people. You might not own treasures here on earth. But your eyes might still be fixed on earthly treasure. You might have dreams of being a wealthy businessman? Owning a large home, fancy cars, living in a wealthy suburb. Even if you don’t own these things. These are the things that motivate you. Is that what motivates you? Its why you study? Its that why you work?
And so you need to ask yourself: Are the eyes of ur heart fixed on God or are they fixed on money?
Just examine the eyes of your heart at the moment. You might wanna close your eyes.
What do you dream about at night? What do you day-dream about? When you keep getting distracted at work, what is it that keeps distracting you? What makes you excited? What is it that you keep thinking about? That’s what the eyes of ur heart are focused on.
There’s a well known Christian quote that goes like this: “you are not what you think you are. But what you think,… you are.” Whatever it is you keep thinking about. That’s what the eyes of your heart are focused on. And that’s gona influence your whole life.
“you are not what you think you are. But what you think you are.”
You know the song:
Turn your eyes upon Jesus.
Look full in His wonderful face.
And the things of the earth will grow strangely dim
in the light of His glory and grace.
Beautiful old song.
But do you know the opposite is also true. If we turn our eyes upon money. If we become focused on earthly treausres. Then God and His glory will become strangely dim. We’ll lose our passion for Him.
So We could add a verse like this.
If you focus ur eyes upon money
Earthly treasures seeming so bright
Then your life will be full of great darkness
For God alone is the source of true light.
So this is the 2ndpractical decision you need to make. You need to decide where you gona fix your eyes.
And then thirdly, you need to decide who’s gona be ur master? Verse 24.
No-one can serve two masters. 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 both God and money.”
Now of course this illustration isn’t talking about working relationships today. Today it is possible for you to have more than one employer. Maybe you work for one person Monday till Wednesday. And for someone else Thursday and Friday. You working for two different people. But that’s not how it worked with slaves and masters. If you were someone’s slave, then your whole life belonged to that person. It wasn’t possible to have 2 masters. And so when Jesus talks about God and money, he doesn’t use the illustration of employers and employees. He uses the illustration of slaves and masters.
Just as it’s impossible to have more than one master, in the same way its impossible to serve God and money.
Now we need to be clear here: Jesus isn’t saying its wrong for us to own money or to make money here on earth. Did you notice in verse 19, Jesus said: don’t store up treasure for yourselves. And so it’s fine to make lots of money as long as ur not storing it up for yourself. As long as ur giving it away.