Sunday, March 1

And then we're going to go ahead and go to God in prayer. Father in heaven, be with us this morning. There is a lot in these verses. The argument is being made about the center of our being and the desires of our heart to the reassurance of your provision and your help. May you convict us of our pride where we have sought to simply elevate ourselves. May you convict us of our self-assurance where we have thought that we were able, through our own strength or might or merit, to achieve what only can be achieved through your Son. May you be with the discouraged and the fearful, the ones who look at what you have called us to do and to be, and are fearful and nervous and uncertain. We live in a world filled with chaos and fear, and it's easy for us to see that brokenness, and so may you lift our

eyes to the hills from where our help comes from. Help us. Both help us to see the truth of who we are and the glorious reality of your provision and your peace that has been poured out upon us. Be with us. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So there was a time when you would get married, and I don't know if they still do this or not, but people would write their marriage advice down for you, either in a guest book or like a little book of wisdom or on little cards so that you could use that at a later date. Sort of just a whole bunch of generally bad marriage advice, right? All just in one place that is sort of disjointed. And I remember when Rachel and I were engaged and we're getting ready to be married, people would come up with just sort of random bits of advice. And I remember one guy came up and he said to me, "You know, I heard that each of you, you should go out every week." So she goes out on Tuesday and I go out on Thursday. And I was like, "Well, that's not helpful." Then another guy came up to me, and his adult children attended here at the time, and he said, "Well, you know what? We said early in our marriage that we would always try to figure it out."

Before we went to bed, we'd never go to bed angry. And so, you know, what we would do is we would get a pot of coffee, even if it was 11 o'clock at night, and we would sit down and figure it out, and we would deal with it like, you know, rational adults. And his adult kids were behind him going, "That never happened." Right? You know, it's like, "Good advice, but maybe we didn't take it or he didn't take it." And there is a tendency in our world just to sort of try to compile a whole bunch of advice. Whether it fits together, whether it's good. All of these different things. And one of the tendencies when we come to the Sermon on the Mount is just sort of look at it like earthly advice. Here is a bunch of little nuggets of wisdom and nuggets of advice that sort of might help you in life, but maybe they don't. If you consider the most recognizable statements from the Sermon on the Mount, right? The salt of the earth. Not just in the way Jesus means it, but sometimes we use it especially to refer to, you know, sort of good, solid people.

They're sort of the salt of the earth type. Things like love your enemies, some things taken out of context, like judge not. The golden rule, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Let your light shine. Not usually talking about the glory of God's kingdom, just sort of make sure that you're sort of sparkly in the world in which you live. And what has happened in many cases in the church and out of the church is that these words of Jesus, these revolutionary, earth-shaking words of Jesus have sort of been removed from context and shortened to sort of sound bites and have lost their depth of meaning. And as we take a look at the second half of Matthew chapter 6 this morning, I want to remind you that this is a sermon. This is not just sort of a bunch of little tidbits on a card where we get a little bit of advice here and a little bit of advice here, but rather that this is an entire

message that fits together and flows together. And as it convicts our hearts, it also drives us and brings us to hope as it shows us our brokenness. It also transforms us into something wonderful. And so as Jesus is speaking, he's not just sort of simply signing a spiritual guest book. He's transforming everything about us. And one of the great things about this sermon is that it's symmetrical. And what I mean by that is the way in which Jesus presents this. And we use this illustration last week. It's sort of like going up a mountain. That in the first half of the sermon, if you fold it over, it would match up with the second half of the sermon. And at the top of the mountain is the Lord's Prayer and Jesus's words about prayer. And one of the reasons for me saying that is because our text this morning, Matthew 6:19-34, is sort of the other side of Matthew 5:21-48.

In Matthew 5:21, Jesus is telling us that our sin goes deeper than simply the actions on the outside. That the issue of murder isn't just that you're out murdering, but it's anger and unresolved resentment deep in your heart. That your outward sin is preceded by something that goes much deeper. Now in Matthew 6, beginning in verse 19 down through 34, Jesus is doing kind of the same thing, but instead of saying your sin goes deeper than you think, he says your trust goes shallower than you think. That you need to go down deep and anchor your trust into the Heavenly Father. That both our sin and our lack of trust is a heart problem. The second reason that we need to see this as a sermon, not just a collection of good advice, is that at the center of all of this is the Lord's Prayer and Jesus' teaching on prayer.

And in that section, Jesus describes three different kinds of people. He begins by talking about those who are self-assured. He says like this, "When you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others truly, I say to you, they have received their reward." And what Jesus is saying is these are people who have been convinced, and they see God's Word as simply confirming their righteousness, right? I've got it done. I've got it made. I've got it figured out. The second kind of people Jesus describes before he comes to the Lord's Prayer are sort of those self-made people, those who have a plan to make themselves great. He says this, "When you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think they will be heard by their many words."

And he uses this picture of prayer that some people either treat as a combination lock, right? If I can figure out the right combination of words, I can open the door to prayer. If I can figure out the right titles of God, I can flatter Him into doing what I want Him to do. The picture here is that I can figure out how to get from where I am to where I will be. And this is a real temptation, I think, in the Christian life. First of all, the temptation to be self-assured and to think we've got it all together, but the second temptation is to think that I can do it myself. I can get myself from where I am, and if I can figure out the right list and the right practices and the right combination,

I can get from my brokenness to my goodness all on my own. And so here's the plan. I'm going to make it happen. And then there's a third group that Jesus speaks to. And he says this, "Pray then like this, Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be your name." Right? And this group specifically are seeking a deeper relationship with God. Jesus talks about them at the beginning as those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. And he says to those who are not self-assured, those who are not seeking some sort of glorious self-salvation project, that there is a new relationship. And you come hungry, and you come thirsty, and you come to a Father who satisfies your deepest needs. And last week we saw this. In the Lord's Prayer we see there's a new relationship. We have a Father.

There's a new desire to hallow His name. There's a new authority and a new kingdom. There's a new mission. There is a new provision. There's a new heart and a new direction. So I want to summarize these three like this because it's a theme that runs through this entire text this morning. There's some who think they have it all together. There may be some of us here. Some of us who like to have a plan to figure it out on our own, and there are some who are coming. And you're wrung out, and you're tired, and you're hungry. This is one of the reasons why seeing the Sermon on the Mount as a sermon, not as a disjointed words of advice, is so important. All right, Jesus is talking to all three groups of people.

The ones who have it together, they think they can get it together, and the ones who know they don't, and they're thirsting for something deeper. And Jesus is coming to us and saying, "I'm not coming with a list that you can check off to show your achievement, or a plan for you to follow to get there." I'm coming to you with a promise that your Heavenly Father securely provides for your needs. And this promise confronts our self-sufficiency, it corrects our self-made striving, and it's the very thing that our hungry souls have been longing to hear. And our text begins with three pictures, and these are not sort of an individual picture here, picture there, picture there. It's three illustrations Jesus is using to bring us to a very clear and a very fine point that confronts our deepest needs

before He answers the reality of what we truly need. The question is the question we've been asking through this whole Sermon on the Mount. Who is it that you're trusting? Is it in yourself? Is it your plan? Or is your Father? Is it your Father? Let's take a look at these three pictures. Jesus begins like this: "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 is also." So the first picture Jesus uses is that of treasure. And it's often times treasure is sort of an abstract thing, right? There's pirate treasure, there's buried treasure.

For first century, this was not an abstract picture. It's interesting that this word that's used is the root of the English word thesaurus. So it's the thoros instead of us at the end of it. And so just like a thesaurus is a sort of a treasure trove of synonyms, when Jesus talks about treasure, what he's talking about is a collection of things that you view as valuable. And Jesus's listeners would have heard something not sort of ethereal or a mystery or a rumor or a legend. They would have thought of things that were stored up that were valuable specifically for a future need. And the ultimate question at the heart of this treasure is this, "What is my future hopes and security based upon?" That's what Jesus is asking us. And in these verses, Jesus gives us, I think, three asset classes and four dangers to things that sometimes we treasure.

Now, these are very specific to his audience. He says, "There is a danger of moths," and he's speaking here about garments. Now, for most of us, this might be a little bit removed, because when clothes wear out for us, what do we do? We discard them and get rid of them. We don't generally see clothes as a long-term way to build wealth in our world. Now, in Jesus's day, some of this fabric, fine robes were expensive based on coloration, based on seams, and some of these could represent the savings of your family. And what Jesus says, he says, "There's moths." Right? You may treat this garment well, you may wash it, you may not have ripped it, but sometimes little bugs get in there, and they begin to eat your life savings. The second danger that he brings is rust, and the asset classes here are both metals and grains. And the picture here of rust is, we think of rust as only on metal. It means something that's eating something else.

Both metals can be destroyed by rust, but also your stockpile of grain can be destroyed by bugs, and by mice, and by mold. So he has these asset classes of metal, and cloth, and grain, and he says there's both rust, and there's moths, and then he gives us a fourth danger, or a different danger. Not just the passive dangers of moths and rust. But there's thieves breaking in and stealing, and the word here literally means to dig through. Because most houses were not made of two-by-fours, and timbers, and bricks, and stone. Most of them were made of clay bricks, or of dirt packed closely together. And so the thief isn't going to use the front door. He just grabs a shovel and goes right through the side. And Jesus says when you store up treasure here, you have to worry not just about the passive degradation of time,

of your grain going bad, of your metal rusting, of moths getting into your expensive garments, but you have to worry about those who are actively seeking to steal them. And Jesus here, make sure you understand, is not saying physical things are bad, or we should stop working, or we should stop caring about anything physically. He's saying something far deeper. That if this is your ultimate source of hope, it will fail. Maybe passively. Maybe actively. That in the timeline of eternity, these things are incredibly fragile. And if these physical things are what bring you peace, a moth can take it, rust can destroy it, and a burglar can steal it. And then he has a startling statement. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. We've heard this over and over again throughout our life.

And I think I've gotten it backwards for a good portion of my life. I've always assumed that Jesus here is saying that my heart is going to gather up a whole bunch of treasure. So I love this, and so I'm going to gather it to myself like a dragon hoarding gold. But notice that Jesus doesn't say, "Where your heart is, your treasure will be also." He says, "Where your treasure is, your heart will be after." Jesus is saying, "Where your treasure goes, what you value, what you work for, what you save, what you protect, your heart is going to follow those things." It's both transnational and it's intensely practical because it means that all of our decisions, whether large or small, everyday or once-in-a-lifetime decisions of what we pursue and what we choose, where we place our time, where we place our energy, where we place our resources, where we place our hope,

it's ultimately shaping our hearts. That as we walk out this door and begin to make decisions, this or that, that will have an impact on my heart. What we choose in these things is going to move my heart in a certain direction. And that begins to transform how we think and how we live. That we are deciding, with every action we take, ultimately what our hearts are going to love. What is it that secures me? And Jesus says, "Here's the treasure. Your heart follows. What you invest in, you come to love. When you organize your life around, you find yourself unable to imagine living without." The treasure, in part, it reveals your heart, but it also forms your heart. And the first way that Jesus confronts us is, He says, "Where are you putting your energy and your time and your effort? What are you protecting?

What are you prioritizing? What is it that you're seeking?" The second picture is this. He says that there is a light of the body. 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 the light is in you, it's darkness. How great is the darkness? And just as we needed to understand treasure a little more clearly, we need to take a moment and understand what Jesus is saying. We primarily think of the eye as something that receives, right? Light goes into it. We get an image. That's how we see. In the ancient world, eyes were seen just a little bit differently. Not something necessarily that brought light in, but a lamp that sent something out. We still get glimpses of this, right? Have you ever

said, "Oh, I see a twinkle in your eyes." Or have you ever heard the eyes are windows to the soul? Or have you ever stared deeply into the eyes of your spouse to see if they were the one who really ate the last Reese's, right? Eyes are not just something that brings something in, but it's something that goes out. And when Jesus is talking about eyes, he's not just talking about what you see. He's talking about how you look at things. And how we look is shaped by what our heart is already directed toward. That's our treasure. And if our heart is directed toward something, our eyes are going to follow, and if that's the wrong thing, we're going to be blind to everything around us. That's what Jesus means about darkness. Let me give you an example. We've got a little cattle dog, and he loves to chase things. Chase the cows.

We've got cows to chase. We've got horses to chase. Squirrels to chase. Skunks to chase. Skunks to chase, thankfully not yet. Children to chase. But he loves chasing a ball. And he will chase that ball to the exclusion of everything else. So I'll be throwing the ball, and I'll chuck it because I need to wear him out. And I can only throw so far, so you add a little bit of leverage, and you can get that ball really going. And he'll chase that ball with every ounce of energy. And he does it about three times. He'll stand with you, you throw it, and he runs. He stands with you, you throw it, and he runs about three times. And then, the third or fourth time, he drops the ball, and he turns, and he runs exactly back to where he caught the other one.

Doesn't matter if you're throwing the ball there or not. Doesn't matter if you're throwing the ball there or there. He's going exactly back to where he caught the ball the last time. And what Jesus is saying is that our eyes, as we look out at what we treasure, we are running back toward that place over and over again, and we become blind to everything that is around us. And just like rangers running there, doesn't care if the ball is over there now, he's going to run here. He says that is a real possibility in your life. Some of you are doing that. You're looking to the thing with the exclusion of all else, and you're missing it. And you see Jesus is coming directly from the first picture. Misplacing treasure doesn't just affect security. It impacts how we see. It changes what

we look at and what we notice and what we evaluate as important. If our treasure is in the wrong place, we're going to start to see everything through the light of what we might gain or what we might lose. And there is a startling statement: "If the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness?" Jesus isn't asking a question going, "Well, if the light in you is darkness, how great is your darkness?" Jesus is saying it. You see, a person can be convinced that they are seeing clearly, but like Ranger with the ball, they're missing everything around them. You see, some of us are looking for direction. And because we've looked at what we treasure rather than who we should treasure, we're missing something wonderful. Some of us are looking at ourselves in pride. Some of us are looking at ourselves in ability. Some of us are looking at

ourselves in despair. Jesus then brings us to a very sharp point. "No one can serve a master, for either he can love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money." This third picture reveals what Jesus has been doing. He starts with what we are working for and setting our hearts on, the treasure. He continues with what we're looking at and what we're focused upon, and he's giving us the criteria to evaluate our allegiance. And when Jesus is talking about love and he's talking about hate, he's talking about devotion and despising, these are covenant terms. Right? These are not terms just focused on your emotions, how you feel. I love this. I hate this. These are terms of allegiance. You will devote yourself to one. You will act in accordance with one of these. You will

organize your life around one. Here's what's remarkable. This is often for us not a line-in-the-sand kind of approach. Here's the line. I know when I've crossed it. It's often not a dramatic choice. It's a collection of everyday little choices. It's a collection of everyday moments. It's a collection of choices that have already been made in our heart and in our eyes. And ultimately, every single one of us, without exception, is serving something. The question is not, "Will I serve?" It is, "Who am I serving right now?" And Jesus says the choice is clear. You cannot serve both God and money. Some of your translations may say mammon. And I like that translation, because it's coming kind of directly out of the original languages. Because the issue here is not just currency. We hear money, and we think dollar bills, we think

coins, we think paper money. But this word mammon carries the picture of a treasure that a person trusts in. In fact, in his words about treasure, right, Jesus doesn't even mention currency. He mentions clothes. He mentions metals. That may be currency, maybe not. He mentions grain. He mentions being romped. Some will actually direct this to some Chaldean gods. It's part of the root of this word. You see, this word carries with it the personification of wealth or security or the center of hope that is not directed at God. And the diagnostic question for our heart is, "If I had this, everything will be okay." Right, that's the contrast that Jesus is drawing here when He says, "You cannot love both God and mammon." That picture of what you treasure. And some of those things that we treasure, they're not bad things.

They were just never designed to be ultimate things. This past winter, the one little river we drive by pretty regularly froze over deep enough to where the kids could go out and walk on it, so we went out and slid on it. We went back the next week when it was in the '50s. And you stand on it, and it cracks, and a ranger runs out on it, and it turns to slush. What Jesus is doing is drawing a contrast here. These things that you're hoping in the moth and rust destroy, the thieves break into steel. You're putting your life on ice that is thin. It's not bad to think about what you're going to eat. It's not bad to work hard. But if that is your hope, it is ice that will melt, and it will crack, and it will plunge you into the freezing water that destroys your soul.

This can be money, absolutely. But it can also be our relationships. People we love, people we care about friendships. It can be our status. It can be our achievements. This is the personification of what am I placing my hope in. And some of us in this picture feel hesitation. Because maybe we have thought that we've pretty much got it all together. And Jesus pointedly is saying, "Those things that you have been hoping in, they're ice that's going to fall apart under your feet." And some of us who think that we can plan our way out of everything, He's going, "You can plan, but that plan never comes together." There's always more striving. There's always more work. And then some of us who are seeking to serve God, and we're tired, and we say, "I don't know if I can do it.

I don't know if I can keep going. I don't know if I'm going to have enough. What if I trust God completely?" He doesn't come through. Remember these three people: the self-assured, the self-made, and the hungry for righteousness. What is at the heart of our allegiance? Jesus has addressed all of us. You see, this isn't meant to be a list. It's meant to be the heart. What can I do? Because I'll chase the wrong thing. One argument, three pictures tightened around our heart. What is your treasure? What is your priority? Where are you looking? What is your perception? Who is your master? Oftentimes, we're just simply aimed at the wrong source. Here's what I love about what happens next. We're not going to go into the second part of this, because I still have like eight pages of notes left.

But I want you to see how Jesus responds. He just says this, "Therefore." To the self-assured and proud who thinks he has it all together. To the guy with the plan who has it all together. To the one who is struggling and saying, "Where do I go from here?" Jesus says this, "Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life." And Jesus isn't just doing this thing where he says, "Oh, don't be afraid. Don't be anxious." And we go, "Well, how can I do that?" Jesus is going to address the depths of our heart. That God provides in our worry that we won't have enough stored up. That he provides in the midst of our toil. That he provides in the midst of our fear. And that he transforms the depths of our heart.

Jesus doesn't look at us and say, "Man, you really messed this up," and walk away. Jesus doesn't look at us and say, "Man, I've got some homework for you before I can help you." Jesus looks at us and says, "Therefore, let me show you a better way." A way that is not based on your effort, a way that is not based on your strength, but as a way that is based on the goodness of the Father. And what he says next, and what we'll see next week, is just this simple truth. Your Father securely provides for your needs. Not as a formula, not as a reward for getting it right, but as the simple, steady, unshakable reality of what it means to be his child. There is treasure that moth and rust cannot touch, that thieves cannot break in and steal.

There's a clarity of vision that comes from when your eyes are looking in the right direction. There is a rest that comes when your allegiance is settled, and that Master turns out to be your Father. It's not hypothetical. Jesus is not talking about what might be or what could be. He's talking about reality. To the proud, to the starving and striving, to the fearful, Jesus is going to say, "Set down your burdens. Rest from your labors and trust in my goodness." Let's pray. Father in heaven, help us as we evaluate our lives. It's easy for us to so often look at who I am and what I can do and how I can get and achieve and move forward. But you have shown us very clearly that hope is ultimately in you and in you alone. So may we fix our eyes on you. May we fix our eyes on your Son, who is the author

and perfecter of our faith, that in our anxious struggles of divided hearts and the temptations of the world and the fear that surrounds us, that you would lead us to the bread of life and to the water that takes away our thirst, that we would see your goodness. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. We're going to stand and sing. And just a reminder, if there is ever anything that we can help you with, if we can pray with you about, any questions that we can answer, we are welcome to talk to us about that, whether it's now, whether it's tomorrow, whether it's later today. We just want you to know that there is hope and there is help found ultimately in Jesus. Let's stand, and we're going to sing.