The Gospel of the Kingdom - Matthew - Treasures - Part 1

 

Text: Matthew 6:19-24 – “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.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. “The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is 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 else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”

We have gone from giving, praying, and fasting, to Jesus talking about the Kingdom and treasures. According to one survey of over 4,000 people, Americans are more cynical today than ever before. We don’t trust politicians or the economy and many are suspicious of the church. I realize that our topic today may create additional cynicism for some of you. One of the raps that churches have today is that they’re always asking for money.

 That reminds me of the mother who was hysterical because little Jimmy had swallowed a quarter. She turned to her husband and screamed for him to call a doctor. So he picked up the phone, but instead of calling the doctor, he decided to call his pastor. The wife was upset and said, “We don’t need the pastor, we need some medical help!” To which the husband replied, “Hey, our pastor can get money out of anyone!”

Since I know what I’m up against when tackling the topic of money in church, I hope to persuade you that it’s important to hear what the Bible has to say.

You see, according to Jesus, money is a spiritual issue. And, since it’s a spiritual issue, we need to address it for at least three reasons.

• 1.     The Bible has more to say about money than almost any other subject.
• 2.     Giving will help us get to where we’re going as a church.
• 3.     There are incredible benefits to giving.

The topic of money is both personal and theological. I’ve come across three different theological perspectives in my conversations with people.

• 1.     Poverty Theology. This imbalanced view teaches that we should have a disdain for possessions. Some who hold this position would say that it’s wrong to have excess money and things.
• 2.     Prosperity Theology. This teaching wrongly assumes that prosperity is the reward of the righteous. This cause and effect relationship implies that if God is happy with you, He will bless you financially. If He’s not pleased with you, you won’t be blessed with possessions.
• 3.     Proper Theology. The proper way to view our possessions is that they are a trust given by God that we are responsible to manage. Everything belongs to Him and we are to serve as stewards whether we are blessed with a lot or with a little.

Before we jump into our text for today, let me make a couple observations.

We all struggle with materialism. Money magazine has declared that money is now the #1 obsession of Americans. We’re not comfortable with the struggle. If we’re honest, we don’t really like materialism’s mantra.

John Stott put it this way: “We cannot maintain a life of extravagance and a good conscience simultaneously. One or the other has to be sacrificed. Either we keep our conscience and reduce our affluence by giving generously and helping those in need, or we keep our affluence and smother our conscience. We have to choose between God and money.”

Jesus realizes that most people struggle with managing money -- that’s why He devoted much of His teaching to this critical area of life.

He dealt with money matters because money matters. 

In this passage, Jesus challenges us with the question, “Where is your treasure?”  He then helps us find the answer by giving four tests. We will look at each one over the next four days.

Hang in there with me, don’t tune me out because of the topic – after all, it is Jesus who is speaking – not me.