From the teaching on prayer (6:5-18) Jesus moves on to the matter of dealing with our view on material things in 6:19-24.
Let’s
face it. There are few matters that worry us more than the matter of material
security. An unknown poet once wrote, “possessions
weigh me down in life, I never feel quite free. I often wonder whether I own my
things or whether my things own me.” I
say this as Marcelle and I are on the verge of leaving the security that a
salaried life affords. One of the greatest anxieties for people facing
retirement is this question, “Will I have
enough money to make it through my last years“? But, material worries are not just the domain
of pensioners; many if not most people struggle with materialism.
Now, remember again, that the Lord Jesus was talking to
disciples - to Christians. We sometimes assume that Christians shouldn’t be
anxious about possessions or money. That is
why the next part of the sermon
deals with anxiety over material things (6:25-34), and this because Christians do struggle with anxiety. And so our Lord makes a point about this in
His sermon on Christian discipleship. It
is clearly a relevant subject for our day. Dr Martyn Lloyd Jones preached a
sermon on this text, entitled “God or Mammon?”, and he says in his introduction, “ … there is nothing so fatal
and tragic as to think that words like these have nothing to do with us
because we are Christians. Indeed, this is perhaps the most urgent word
that is needed by Christian people at this very moment. The world is so subtle;
worldliness is such a pervasive thing, that we are all guilty of it, and often
without realizing it.”[1]
What is it then that we need
to hear concerning the matter of earthly treasures, which tend to absorb so much of our energies? What do we as Christian people here at
Eastside need to hear about our money and possessions or perhaps lack thereof? It is 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 will be also” [Matt
6: 19-24].
We need to hear 3
things!
(i) Earthly treasures
are temporal:
We need to hear that these things
decay (moth and rust destroys everything); these things disappear (thieves
break in and steal). From an investment point of view, the hanging of our
hearts on to earthly treasures is therefore not a sound investment.
(ii) Treasures should
be laid up in heaven.
We need to hear this. We need to have our attention drawn to the fact that our
ultimate destiny is not our pensionable age. Our ultimate destiny is heaven. This
means that we should invest NOW in
our eternal future. We are assured that this is a good investment. Heaven is a
place of safe returns where moth and rust do not destroy and where thieves do
not break in.
(iii) Earthly treasures
are heart consuming.
We need to hear what Jesus says about the terrible danger of having your heart
in the wrong place with respect to our ‘treasures’ (6:21). Many of us start with ideals of not being possessed by
material things. But then slowly, as life’s happens and as the attractions of the world begin to lure
us and as peer pressure begins to mount, our resolutions
dwindle away. We get enslaved. Our hearts get captured. Perhaps we own a lot of property, or perhaps
we have a lot of debt. These things
bring worry. Worry in turn enslaves our hearts, so that we cannot live as the
Lord’s free people. Paul laments the fact that Demas, in love with this present world has deserted
him (2 Tim. 4:9). The Lord Jesus
warns us, ”Watch yourselves lest your
hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life…”
(Lk. 21:34). Anything that grips our
heart, mind and will, absorbing us to the point that we lose perspective on our
true, eternal, ultimate goal and treasure and any undue concern for material
things to the point of an enslavement need to be watched. And in 6:24
Jesus says that we cannot treasure both
God and money on the same level. We need to hear this, and we need to take
these things to heart.
6:22,23 How we get trapped by our treasures
Where does it all begin? Hear this: “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! [6:22,23]
For many people these 2 verses make very little sense at face
value. But if you consider the context, it makes very much sense. Where do our
wrong priorities begin? When and how is our heart taken captive by treasures? These
two verses provide the answer. They begin with the eyes - the eye gate - the way
we look at treasures! Oh be careful
little eyes what you see! According to Jesus, there are only two ways in
which you can look at treasures. A consideration of the original Greek text helps
us here. You look through a good (Gr. haplous lit. ‘to look through a single
eye’) eye, or you look through a bad eye (Gr. poneros literally, evil eyes).
The first man looks at “earthly treasures” through a single (good) eye. He sees things for
what they really are. He sees them from God’s point - the biblical point of view. For him, earthly treasures are gifts from God
to be used for God’s glory and for our enjoyment. The other man has an evil eye. His vision is affected, but not by God’s view - a biblical world view. His vision is
coloured as 1 Jn. 2:16 says, “by all that is in the world - the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life“.
He loves and desires these things for themselves , and not with a God centred world
view. There are so many illustrations of
this in the Bible.
Judas’ evil eye is seen in that he does not ultimately look
to the “Lord of glory“, whom he professed with the lips; but he looks to the
thirty pieces of silver that he may gain for himself. We have already
noted what Paul said about a former
co-worker, Demas in 2 Timothy 4:10 ,
“ who,
because he loved this world, has deserted me …” Paul also exposes the evil eye in 1 Timothy 6:10 when he says: “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. “
One more illustration from the Old Testament will help
us. In Joshua 7 we find the first
negative incident in terms of the conquest
of the Promised Land. There is always
someone in Israel (or in
the church) who does not think that
God’s commandments are to be taken
seriously. Israel was expressly
warned by God not to take anything from
Jericho (see Josh 6:18). Everything
was to be devoted to the Lord, since Jericho represented the ‘first-fruits ‘of
Israel’s conquest into the promised land. But what does a man called Achan
do? He takes some of the devoted things.
As a result God was not pleased and so Israel suffered her first defeat. What happened? The anatomy of his sin is well described in Joshua 7: 20 – 21: “I saw … I coveted … I took!” Where did his sin begin? With the evil eye - with what he saw!
So here’s the heart of the matter. Jesus says that wrong
thinking about material things begins with our eyes. If our eyes are good they
are full of light, meaning that they are committed to do God’s will. But if the
eyes are bad (evil), then this will issue in darkness. In this case it means
that our “treasures’ will become our god,
and therefore we descend into darkness.
6:24 God and money?
Now the specific question about treasures arises in 6:24. Can
one perhaps not serve both, God and money/possessions? No! Says Jesus – you cannot serve two masters. There will
ultimately only be only one master – money or God. The problem with earthly treasures
is that they demand our entire devotion. They want us to live for them in an
absolute way. But so does God! “You shall love the Lord your God with all
your heart, soul, mind, strength…” (Mk.12:30).
And your heart will make a choice.
And anything that places earthly treasures before God is
called idolatry in the Bible. And God must always have the priority. “I am the Lord your God … you shall have no
other gods before me…” (Ex. 20:1,2). The Creator is always
greater than the things that He created for our use and pleasure. We must remember that the way in which we look
at these created things ultimately determine our relationship with God. And if
these earthly treasures control us, then we are essentially God- less, whatever we may say to the contrary .
Here’s a sobering
thought: The man who puts his
treasures before God but thinks that he is godly because he believes in God, occasionally talks about God, gives his offerings, goes to church once on a Sunday when he’s in town, may actually be even in greater danger,
because in his heart he is simply
religious and not really devoted to God. Now look at what Jesus says in the second half
of 6:23: “If the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness“.
Do you see what Jesus is saying here? Here’s a man who claims to be a
Christian. He claims to be in the light. But his heart and deeds deny him. He
loves his possessions, time, and even his family (see the warning in Matthew
10:37) more than God is in danger of losing God, and if you lose
God, then you lose heaven and eternal life. Such darkness is very great, says
Jesus, because this man is doing this in the light!
Conclusion
Dr Lloyd Jones tells the story of a farmer who joyfully announced to his family that their favourite
cow had given birth to twin calves- one red and one white. And he said to his
family, “I really think that we must
dedicate and give one of these calves to the Lord. When it is grown up, we will sell her and
give the proceeds to the Lord‘s work.” His wife asked him which one he was
going to dedicate to the Lord. He said
that he wouldn’t bother about that right now. One day, after a few months, the
farmer came home, looking very sad and dejected. He said to his wife that the Lord’s
calf was dead. She said, ”But you
had not yet decided which one was the Lord’s.” He said: “Oh I had always known in my heart that it
was the white one that belonged to the Lord!
The Lord’s calf is dead!“
We may laugh at the story - but we may be laughing at
ourselves. It is most often the Lord’s calf that dies. When money becomes
tight, the first thing that goes is the Lord’s money. When time is tight, the first thing that
disappears is our private and public worship– spending time in God’s presence,
loving Him, serving Him, doing good for
His sake , and all because we love Him who loved us first
so much.
When we begin to constantly make excuses as to why we cannot
be found in His presence, and when we constantly substitute our earthly treasure for Him, who is our greatest treasure, then it is time to
ask whether we will not perhaps be those
of whom He speaks 7:21-23- “I never knew you”
So I must ask you: What does this ultimately tell about you? Who do you really serve?
God or earthly treasures?
No comments:
Post a Comment