Sernon (05-6-5)
Treasure and Money by Ken Shigematsu
Big Idea: How do we become wise investors? 1) by realizing the superiority of heavenly investments (better and longer lasting 2) by realizing that heavenly investments shape the heart 3) by having the right vision and 4) by having the right master.
As a young child, once in a while I would fantasize about finding a very, very old map, which I imagined to be yellowed with time and cracked in certain places because of it’s age…
I envisioned that this map that would lead me to chest of treasure filled gold coins, diamonds, rubies, sapphires, deposited by pirates year ago…
I don’t think about finding that ancient map anymore, but I still think about treasure from time to time…
You probably do to.
It may or not be a financial treasure, but we’re thinking about some kind of treasure.
Perhaps the treasure you’re hoping to find treasure through your education, through a career, through a relationship, through an object, through some kind of service…
Jesus is considered most spiritually and morally exemplary person whose ever lived, but he’s best treasure guide of all time (He’s always out top performing investment mangers at companies like Templeton and Merrill Lynch!).
Today as continue to make our way through the Sermon the Mount we come to Matthew 6:19 where Jesus shows us how we become people who discover true wealth.
Treasures in Heaven
19"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
22"The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. 23But 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!
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.
Jesus in this passage is not denying our desire to accumulate treasure.
He’s simply elevating it.
He realizes that it’s not so much that we are too ambitious--it’s that we’re not ambitious enough.
He argues that we tend to aim to too low. We tend to set our sights on treasures that will fade and perish…
He argues none of our “earthly” investments are secure or lasting….
In Jesus day people would accrue wealth by collecting fine garments, by hoarding grain, or through accumulating gold. He pointed out that none of these investments were truly secure. After all, our garments could make a tasty lunch for a moth, grain could be eaten by mice, and a thief could cut a hole in your clay house break and steal our gold.
Jesus says, “"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.”
Jesus would argue today that no earthly treasure is truly secure or lasting. Our stuff can be stolen (as many of us who live in Vancouver know first hand), our investments can be diminished through a market downturn or eroded by inflation, or completely taken way through death…
So, Jesus says aim higher…
19"Don't hoard treasure down here corroded by the ravages of nature, time or stolen by burglars or by death itself… but store treasure in heaven.
There was a man who worked all his life and saved as much as he could. He loved money. It was his security, meaging, and happiness.
Just before he died, he said to his wife, "When I die, I want you to take all my money and put it in the casket with me. If there is an afterlife, I want to take my money with me." His wife promised she’d fulfill the last wish her dying husband.
At his funeral, just before the undertakers closed the casket, his wife put a box in the casket. The undertakers shut the casket and rolled it away.
The wife's friend and confidant whispered to her, "You didn’t… tell me you didn’t put all that money in there with that man."
I promised him I would put that money in the casket with him."
"You mean to tell me you put that money in the casket with him?" her friend asked!
“Well, I wrote him a check."
You can’t take your treasure with you… but you can send on ahead.
I remembering at College Church in Wheaton Illinois, hearing about someone who was having a “garage sale” but not selling off not junk, but these very valuable antiques… Someone asked the owners, why are selling these beautiful antiques? The owners, said we heard about a mission in great financial need and we want to able to contribute more than we are, so we’re selling stuff we cannot keep, for invest in a cause that will last forever…
These couples understand Jesus words about not hoarding treasure on earth that moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal… but storing treasure in heaven…
Jesus is not denying our need to accumulate treasure, he’s simply saying aim higher, much higher, aim for heaven.
In the context of the chapter it seems that some of the ways we can accumulate treasure in heaven is by giving, praying, saying no to something to say YES to God (which is the essence of fasting). We can also accumulate treasure in heaven by becoming a certain kind of person, serving, investing in people, helping people into a relationship with God.
As a new Christian, I remember seeing a plaque that read:
"Only one life, 'twill soon be past, only what's done for Christ will last…"
You want to be a wise investor, think beyond the next quarter, way beyond that quarter… think about eternity.
You want to be wise investor…
Understand that your investments shape your heart.
Jesus said where your treasure is there your heart will be also.
He did not say, “Where you heart is there you treasure will be also.”
Jesus teaches her that our heart follows our treasure (not vice-verse).
When we invest in heaven, the things which matter to God, our heart follows.
Investing in heaven, investing in the things of God, is not only eternally secure, but this also reshapes our heart.
When we invest something like a stock, a car, a home or whatever part of our heart goes there. You buy a stock suddenly concerned about the performance of the company (you don’t check every stock in the paper, but you check yours), you buy a Honda Civic, suddenly you’re noticing Honda Civics (even if you’re Japanese, but you’re kind of into Civics), you buy a home, suddenly your interested in real estate values in your neighborhood. As we invest our heart develops a corresponding interest and attachment, the more we invest the more we tend to become attached.
The writer Samuel Johnson was invited a tour a mansion of magnificent beauty, surrounded by manicured lawns.
Late he quipped to a friend, “A place like this makes it difficult to die.”
The more we build up here, the more our hearts will be here, and the more difficult it is to walk away in life or in death.
I don’t about you, I want my heart to be more set on God, on people, on things that will last on into eternity than things.
Part of the way, we set our hearts on eternity and part of the way we have peace is by investing in things of God: giving, praying, saying no to say yes to God, becoming, serving, investing in people, helping people find God.
How do we become wise investors by understanding that investments in heaven are superior (better and much longer lasting!), by understanding that investments on earth and heaven shape our hearts and third by having the right kind of vision.
In vs. 22 Jesus speak about vision "The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. 23But 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!
Sounds complicated, but the point here is quite simple. If our eye is working properly, it will let in light and we can see properly. But if our eye is not working properly we light will not be able to come into our body properly and it will seem like everything is dark.
The movie “Ray” is as you know about the famous singer Ray Charles. He’s blind. One very early in his career, he’s cooking friend chicken in the dark and his landlady comes home in a says, “How many time I told not to cook in the dark!” Ray says, “Lights on, lights off it always dark to me.”
If our eye is not working properly everything will seem dark to us.
If we focus on material treasures, Jesus is teaching that will have a dark or blurred perspective.
If our focus on material things, our perspective will be darkened. How so? We’ll tend to believe that it’s more important to choose a career based on income earning potential than based on what we can contribute to the common good, we’ll tend to think that money is our real security.
There were a couple of young women studying at a college who gave their lives to Christ. The they really felt God calling them to become missionaries. When they told their parents… both sets of parents said “Oh no… before you become missionaries, you must get some your master’s degrees, have had a few secure jobs so you can put something in our resume get started in careers, and have money in the bank.”
They went to one of their Christian professors Dr. Addison Leech they and explained their parents had said. What should we say to he parents? He said you should say… we live on this little ball of rock that is spinning through space called earth and it only the grace of God that’s holding us in orbit. At the end our lives, a trap door will open under us. When that trap door opens up, there will either the everlasting arms of God or nothing at all. And you think a master’s degree or some job will provide with security?
Jesus if we focus on material things our vision will be darkened, but if we focus on God and on eternity we will have the right kind of perspective.
If you want to be a wise investor, understand securities in heaven are superior to securities on earth, understand where you invest shapes your heart, have an eternal perspective, and finally have the right master.
Jesus says in 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.
Jesus does not say it’s unwise to have two masters or that’s we shouldn’t have two masters, he saying it’s IMPOSSIBLE to have two masters.
It’s possible to have two employees, it’s not possible to have 2 masters, i.e. two parties who demand complete allegiance, and God and money which require complete allegiance.
How would we know whether money is our master?
Most of us don’t think we have a problem with money, but Jesus talks money all the time. He warns us to be aware of the snare of greed.
If those words about greed were relevant in a society where most people were just barely getting by, just eking out a subsistence existence, living not even cheque to cheque, but to day to day, how much more relevant are these words for those us living in one of the most wealthy countries on earth? But materialism and greed can be so subtle and hard to detect.
With some sins are obvious if you’re doing them… if you’re commiting adultery, it not like you say, “oh you’re not wife!” “Oopps you’re not my husband!”
But materialism and greed are much more subtle.
We can often tend to figure, we’re not greedy or materialistic because we all know people or of people who are making 10 times what we’re making. So compared to them, we’re not extravagant or materialistic or into money at all, we think…
May I ask us, myself included, some questions, that might helps us determine whether money is too important to us.
1) How do you view the poor? Do you tend look down on people who are in a lower-socio-economic bracket than you?
Do you not only regard people who are of lower socio-economic bracket as below you economically, but somehow below you.
Do you feel superior to poor people?
If so, could it be that money is too important?
2) How do you view the rich? When we walk into a beautiful home… are we awestruck? Are we wowed when we great displays of wealth… or are we intimidated? If so, could be it be that money too important?
Or do we disdain people who are really wealthy? Could it be that if it’s money causing much or reaction, money is too important to us?
3) How do you view God’s call give? Here I want to speak in particular to those of you who consider yourselves to be in some kind of relationship with God. Does God’s call to give the tithe, i.e., at least 10 percent of our income away bother you? The Bible teaches in Malachi 3 that the first 10th of our income is not ours, but God’s. In response to this truth, does your heart say, I thank God I can make money and giving is a privilege. The first tenth represents a sacrifice in my lifestyle, but this is the right thing to do.
Or in your heart do your resist the call, do you resent it…the call to give God what is rightfully his?
If there’s resistance… could it be that money is too important? Or that you’re putting your trust in it for your happiness, meaning, or security? Could that money, not God, is your functional God?
How can we become people who know that God is our master and our treasure?
By realizing that we are God’s treasure? How do we know that?
We know what a person’s treasure by seeing what a person is willing to give their life for.
If we see that a person giving up their life or their career or some kind of success or some person, we know that which they are giving up their lives for is what they treasure.
When we look at the cross do what we see is God who is saying, I treasure you so much that I became a human being and to die on the cross to pay debt for your sins so that we can be reunited.
When understand we are God’s treasure, it not a far step for God to become our treasure and our master.
How do we become wise investors of the only life we have? By realizing that heavenly investments better and longer lasting than earthly treasures, by realizing they shape our heart, by having an eternal vision and by having God as our master…
Pray… What is our treasure? What do we want our treasure to be?
On the night before Jesus Christ went to the cross, he gave a little picture of just how much he treasures… he took and broke it…
You’re his treasure? Is God yours?
As you know you’re his treasure, make God your treasure…
Big Idea: How do we become wise investors? 1) by realizing the superiority of heavenly investments (better and longer lasting 2) by realizing that heavenly investments shape the heart 3) by having the right vision and 4) by having the right master.
As a young child, once in a while I would fantasize about finding a very, very old map, which I imagined to be yellowed with time and cracked in certain places because of it’s age…
I envisioned that this map that would lead me to chest of treasure filled gold coins, diamonds, rubies, sapphires, deposited by pirates year ago…
I don’t think about finding that ancient map anymore, but I still think about treasure from time to time…
You probably do to.
It may or not be a financial treasure, but we’re thinking about some kind of treasure.
Perhaps the treasure you’re hoping to find treasure through your education, through a career, through a relationship, through an object, through some kind of service…
Jesus is considered most spiritually and morally exemplary person whose ever lived, but he’s best treasure guide of all time (He’s always out top performing investment mangers at companies like Templeton and Merrill Lynch!).
Today as continue to make our way through the Sermon the Mount we come to Matthew 6:19 where Jesus shows us how we become people who discover true wealth.
Treasures in Heaven
19"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
22"The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. 23But 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!
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.
Jesus in this passage is not denying our desire to accumulate treasure.
He’s simply elevating it.
He realizes that it’s not so much that we are too ambitious--it’s that we’re not ambitious enough.
He argues that we tend to aim to too low. We tend to set our sights on treasures that will fade and perish…
He argues none of our “earthly” investments are secure or lasting….
In Jesus day people would accrue wealth by collecting fine garments, by hoarding grain, or through accumulating gold. He pointed out that none of these investments were truly secure. After all, our garments could make a tasty lunch for a moth, grain could be eaten by mice, and a thief could cut a hole in your clay house break and steal our gold.
Jesus says, “"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.”
Jesus would argue today that no earthly treasure is truly secure or lasting. Our stuff can be stolen (as many of us who live in Vancouver know first hand), our investments can be diminished through a market downturn or eroded by inflation, or completely taken way through death…
So, Jesus says aim higher…
19"Don't hoard treasure down here corroded by the ravages of nature, time or stolen by burglars or by death itself… but store treasure in heaven.
There was a man who worked all his life and saved as much as he could. He loved money. It was his security, meaging, and happiness.
Just before he died, he said to his wife, "When I die, I want you to take all my money and put it in the casket with me. If there is an afterlife, I want to take my money with me." His wife promised she’d fulfill the last wish her dying husband.
At his funeral, just before the undertakers closed the casket, his wife put a box in the casket. The undertakers shut the casket and rolled it away.
The wife's friend and confidant whispered to her, "You didn’t… tell me you didn’t put all that money in there with that man."
I promised him I would put that money in the casket with him."
"You mean to tell me you put that money in the casket with him?" her friend asked!
“Well, I wrote him a check."
You can’t take your treasure with you… but you can send on ahead.
I remembering at College Church in Wheaton Illinois, hearing about someone who was having a “garage sale” but not selling off not junk, but these very valuable antiques… Someone asked the owners, why are selling these beautiful antiques? The owners, said we heard about a mission in great financial need and we want to able to contribute more than we are, so we’re selling stuff we cannot keep, for invest in a cause that will last forever…
These couples understand Jesus words about not hoarding treasure on earth that moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal… but storing treasure in heaven…
Jesus is not denying our need to accumulate treasure, he’s simply saying aim higher, much higher, aim for heaven.
In the context of the chapter it seems that some of the ways we can accumulate treasure in heaven is by giving, praying, saying no to something to say YES to God (which is the essence of fasting). We can also accumulate treasure in heaven by becoming a certain kind of person, serving, investing in people, helping people into a relationship with God.
As a new Christian, I remember seeing a plaque that read:
"Only one life, 'twill soon be past, only what's done for Christ will last…"
You want to be a wise investor, think beyond the next quarter, way beyond that quarter… think about eternity.
You want to be wise investor…
Understand that your investments shape your heart.
Jesus said where your treasure is there your heart will be also.
He did not say, “Where you heart is there you treasure will be also.”
Jesus teaches her that our heart follows our treasure (not vice-verse).
When we invest in heaven, the things which matter to God, our heart follows.
Investing in heaven, investing in the things of God, is not only eternally secure, but this also reshapes our heart.
When we invest something like a stock, a car, a home or whatever part of our heart goes there. You buy a stock suddenly concerned about the performance of the company (you don’t check every stock in the paper, but you check yours), you buy a Honda Civic, suddenly you’re noticing Honda Civics (even if you’re Japanese, but you’re kind of into Civics), you buy a home, suddenly your interested in real estate values in your neighborhood. As we invest our heart develops a corresponding interest and attachment, the more we invest the more we tend to become attached.
The writer Samuel Johnson was invited a tour a mansion of magnificent beauty, surrounded by manicured lawns.
Late he quipped to a friend, “A place like this makes it difficult to die.”
The more we build up here, the more our hearts will be here, and the more difficult it is to walk away in life or in death.
I don’t about you, I want my heart to be more set on God, on people, on things that will last on into eternity than things.
Part of the way, we set our hearts on eternity and part of the way we have peace is by investing in things of God: giving, praying, saying no to say yes to God, becoming, serving, investing in people, helping people find God.
How do we become wise investors by understanding that investments in heaven are superior (better and much longer lasting!), by understanding that investments on earth and heaven shape our hearts and third by having the right kind of vision.
In vs. 22 Jesus speak about vision "The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. 23But 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!
Sounds complicated, but the point here is quite simple. If our eye is working properly, it will let in light and we can see properly. But if our eye is not working properly we light will not be able to come into our body properly and it will seem like everything is dark.
The movie “Ray” is as you know about the famous singer Ray Charles. He’s blind. One very early in his career, he’s cooking friend chicken in the dark and his landlady comes home in a says, “How many time I told not to cook in the dark!” Ray says, “Lights on, lights off it always dark to me.”
If our eye is not working properly everything will seem dark to us.
If we focus on material treasures, Jesus is teaching that will have a dark or blurred perspective.
If our focus on material things, our perspective will be darkened. How so? We’ll tend to believe that it’s more important to choose a career based on income earning potential than based on what we can contribute to the common good, we’ll tend to think that money is our real security.
There were a couple of young women studying at a college who gave their lives to Christ. The they really felt God calling them to become missionaries. When they told their parents… both sets of parents said “Oh no… before you become missionaries, you must get some your master’s degrees, have had a few secure jobs so you can put something in our resume get started in careers, and have money in the bank.”
They went to one of their Christian professors Dr. Addison Leech they and explained their parents had said. What should we say to he parents? He said you should say… we live on this little ball of rock that is spinning through space called earth and it only the grace of God that’s holding us in orbit. At the end our lives, a trap door will open under us. When that trap door opens up, there will either the everlasting arms of God or nothing at all. And you think a master’s degree or some job will provide with security?
Jesus if we focus on material things our vision will be darkened, but if we focus on God and on eternity we will have the right kind of perspective.
If you want to be a wise investor, understand securities in heaven are superior to securities on earth, understand where you invest shapes your heart, have an eternal perspective, and finally have the right master.
Jesus says in 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.
Jesus does not say it’s unwise to have two masters or that’s we shouldn’t have two masters, he saying it’s IMPOSSIBLE to have two masters.
It’s possible to have two employees, it’s not possible to have 2 masters, i.e. two parties who demand complete allegiance, and God and money which require complete allegiance.
How would we know whether money is our master?
Most of us don’t think we have a problem with money, but Jesus talks money all the time. He warns us to be aware of the snare of greed.
If those words about greed were relevant in a society where most people were just barely getting by, just eking out a subsistence existence, living not even cheque to cheque, but to day to day, how much more relevant are these words for those us living in one of the most wealthy countries on earth? But materialism and greed can be so subtle and hard to detect.
With some sins are obvious if you’re doing them… if you’re commiting adultery, it not like you say, “oh you’re not wife!” “Oopps you’re not my husband!”
But materialism and greed are much more subtle.
We can often tend to figure, we’re not greedy or materialistic because we all know people or of people who are making 10 times what we’re making. So compared to them, we’re not extravagant or materialistic or into money at all, we think…
May I ask us, myself included, some questions, that might helps us determine whether money is too important to us.
1) How do you view the poor? Do you tend look down on people who are in a lower-socio-economic bracket than you?
Do you not only regard people who are of lower socio-economic bracket as below you economically, but somehow below you.
Do you feel superior to poor people?
If so, could it be that money is too important?
2) How do you view the rich? When we walk into a beautiful home… are we awestruck? Are we wowed when we great displays of wealth… or are we intimidated? If so, could be it be that money too important?
Or do we disdain people who are really wealthy? Could it be that if it’s money causing much or reaction, money is too important to us?
3) How do you view God’s call give? Here I want to speak in particular to those of you who consider yourselves to be in some kind of relationship with God. Does God’s call to give the tithe, i.e., at least 10 percent of our income away bother you? The Bible teaches in Malachi 3 that the first 10th of our income is not ours, but God’s. In response to this truth, does your heart say, I thank God I can make money and giving is a privilege. The first tenth represents a sacrifice in my lifestyle, but this is the right thing to do.
Or in your heart do your resist the call, do you resent it…the call to give God what is rightfully his?
If there’s resistance… could it be that money is too important? Or that you’re putting your trust in it for your happiness, meaning, or security? Could that money, not God, is your functional God?
How can we become people who know that God is our master and our treasure?
By realizing that we are God’s treasure? How do we know that?
We know what a person’s treasure by seeing what a person is willing to give their life for.
If we see that a person giving up their life or their career or some kind of success or some person, we know that which they are giving up their lives for is what they treasure.
When we look at the cross do what we see is God who is saying, I treasure you so much that I became a human being and to die on the cross to pay debt for your sins so that we can be reunited.
When understand we are God’s treasure, it not a far step for God to become our treasure and our master.
How do we become wise investors of the only life we have? By realizing that heavenly investments better and longer lasting than earthly treasures, by realizing they shape our heart, by having an eternal vision and by having God as our master…
Pray… What is our treasure? What do we want our treasure to be?
On the night before Jesus Christ went to the cross, he gave a little picture of just how much he treasures… he took and broke it…
You’re his treasure? Is God yours?
As you know you’re his treasure, make God your treasure…
posted by Shigematsu at 8:25 PM
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