When I think of one of the most amazing movie heroes, in my opinion, ever made, it has to be Indiana Jones. Indiana Jones, this amazing man who was both a professor and an archaeologist and this courageous treasure hunter going to the deadliest parts of the world to recover these rare and valuable artifacts. I remember in one scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones, in the opening scene is standing before this pedestal in the middle of this dark temple looking at this golden statue. And as he's looking at it, you can tell that the statue has been booby trapped. If he removes it, something awful will happen. And so he's standing there when his foredora hat and his whip, as he always carries with him. And he's got this bag of sand in his hand. And you can tell what his plan is, it's to remove the golden statue quickly and then replace it with the bag of sand so that nothing will trigger this awful catastrophe. And he does it quickly. And as soon as he does, he breathes a sigh of relief. Looks like all is set. But the bag of sand is too heavy. And so it gradually sinks into the pedestal, triggering this booby trap. And all of a sudden, things start going bad. Stones start falling from the ceiling, is rumbling everywhere. And these daggers start flying out of the sides of the wall. So Indiana grabs the statue grabs his hat and makes a dash for it. As he's running through these dark tunnels, there are knives coming out everywhere. He's having to jump over this dark seemingly bottomless pit. And he hangs on to the side and pulls himself up to safety only to look back and see this massive boulder rolling towards him to kill him. And so he's running at this point for his life, literally going through every tunnel only at the last minute to dive out of harm's way as he escapes the temple, panting, laying on his back covered in dirt and cobwebs, but clutching his treasure. The Bible would suggest to us that we are, in a sense, treasure hunters of a different sort. Right? Art treasures for most of us aren't these statues of gold, these rare relics. The treasures that capture our heart are of a different sort. They may be all kinds of different types of treasure, worldly possessions or spiritual treasures, but Jesus today in our passage reminds us that we are treasure hunters. We have some treasures that we are pursuing, that we are valuing, that we are storing up the question is what type of treasure is it? The Bible is really clear on what it should be. I would ask you to turn to Deuteronomy chapter 6. This is in the Old Testament. We're going to read two verses that really help us to see what our treasure should be and that treasure very simply is God himself. Here Moses speaking to Israel, hero Israel, verse 4, the Lord, the God, the Lord is one. You shall and here's the purpose. You shall love the Lord's your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your might and these words that I command you today, shall be on your heart. What should we live, or what should be the treasure that we seek after? Well, the Bible is very clear. That treasure should be God, but Jesus as he's speaking today in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapter 6 warns us that that is much easier said than done. So I would ask you now to turn to Matthew chapter 6. We're going to look at verses 19 through 24 and the big question that we're going to ask ourselves today is what are we living for? What gets us out of bed in the morning? What are we seeking for suing, valuing? What has captured our heart? That's the question. Here, the word of the Lord. Jesus says, do not lay up for yourself treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal but instead lay up for yourself treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal for where your treasure is there, your heart will be also. 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 is in you as darkness, how great is that darkness? And then he concludes, no man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one and love the other or he will be devoted to one and despise the other, you cannot serve both God and money. Jesus is challenging us today. There's a reason we're here sitting in these pews today and there's a reason why this is the passage because God has a word from his Bible to us through his Holy Spirit. And the challenge is this, what are we living for? What is our treasure? We're going to analyze this question, hopefully answer this question for all of us with three things that we're focusing on. First of all, we're going to look at the concept of treasure, then we're going to look at the concept of heart, and then we're going to look at the concept of master, treasure, what we value our heart, what we love, and our master, what rules us. Let's dive right in, verse 19. Do not lay up for yourself treasures on earth. This idea of treasure is something we value. Kids, I would ask you to look up here and kids, I would imagine, I would ask you to imagine this massive treasure chest straight out of a pirate's boat. Imagine that it was sitting up here this big and this long. It's made of wood, old wood, and it's got this frame of iron and this big padlock on the front. Now imagine if you were to undo the padlock and open this massive treasure chest inside, would be gold coins and crowns and jewels and all kinds of rare gems glowing with radiance. The Bible says that in a sense all of us, every one of us today has a treasure chest that we live for. Every single one of us has some treasure in our heart that rules over us, that we seek after, that we value above all else. It could be a lot of different things. It could be money. It could be the things that money buys, your possessions, your material goods, the things that make your home more comfortable, more convenient, the things that you acquire in your wealth. That's what it could be and Jesus is speaking specifically about these worldly possessions but it doesn't have to be money or possessions. It could be other things. It could be success. It could be fame. What others think about you. It doesn't have to be success or fame. It could be just approval. You just want people to like you. You don't care if you're the most successful person around. You just want people to think that you're a good guy. It could be approval. It could be pleasure. It could be anything but the Bible is very clear. We do have something that we seek after. Now Jesus tells us there's two different categories. There's worldly pleasures which I've just sort of enumerated for you, all of those types and there's also heavenly pleasures. Now Jesus says there's a problem with worldly treasures. Treasures of this earth and here it is, they're fleeting. They don't last. They can be gone in an instant. All of a sudden you look at this treasure chest in your life and all of a sudden it's empty. You thought it was full and the day before it was but something disastrous has happened to you and all of a sudden the things you've been living for are gone, like a vapor. Jesus mentions a couple of things that can take away a worldly goods, moths, rust thieves, moths at the time. Just like today, oftentimes you look at clothing as status symbols, the type of clothes that we wear. So in Jesus' time people would accumulate fine linens, beautifully ornate, finely woven linens. But Jesus is saying if you fast forward five, ten years, those clothes that you prized so much, they're going to be tatters. Moths will come in and eat holes in them and they're afraid and they're stained and soiled. They're going to be in the garbage. Right now you look at this as if it's a sign of wealth and prestige but it's going to be garbage. Very soon. Rust, rust corrode, something as strong as a metal, rust eats away at it and decays it. When I was in college I had this bike. It was a used bike at the time but it still was a solid sturdy bike and it took me from dorm to class wherever I wanted to go. The problem was I would leave this bike outside with the rain and over time the rust started to grow on the frame and started to eat away at the metal. And I remember one day, no joke, I'm riding my bike on campus and I hit a bump and literally I'm not making this up. The handlebars come right off. The metal part of the handlebars becomes detached from the frame and of course I go flying my face, hits the pavement. That was a vivid reminder for me for a very long time that the things of this earth get taken away. They corrode, they are destroyed. It can be many things. It can be thieves. Most of us are aware. 2008, this drastic housing market crashed and all of a sudden people that were wealthy and had everything in an instant loss. Everything. And so you had this series of folks who were previously wealthy and successful at the top of their career committing suicide, giving up everything because why? Because their treasure was in worldly possessions that were taken away. I've heard a pastor say over and over to his congregation that there is not one of us and this is true for us today. There is not one of us whose lives may not be changed in an instant by a cell phone ringing or your house phone ringing. Your life is turned upside down in an instant because of some tragedy. This is the frailty of our worldly possessions, of our worldly condition, of our situation in this life. It is so fragile that in an instant we can lose everything. Jesus is challenging us today. Is this really, this worldly possession which is so fragile you may lose everything in an instant? Is this really where you want to store up treasure? Or, Jesus said, you could store up treasures in heaven. I've been convicted personally that I do not think about heavenly treasure enough. I do not think about the reality of heaven enough. I do not dwell on it, meditate on it. It doesn't guide me because here's the thing in our lives. If we want to avoid sin, the best way to avoid sin is not just to run from sin, it's to replace sin with something godly. If we want to avoid a bad habit, the best way is to replace it with a good habit. And if we want to avoid worldly treasures, the best way we can do it is replace it with a fondness and an affection for heavenly treasures. Here what the Bible says about heaven. There's a selection of different passages starting Revelation 21. John is writing about a vision that he sees. Verse 2 of Revelation 21. And I saw the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven for god, prepared as a bride, adorned for her husband. Now sometimes I think we think of heaven and we think of this ephemeral spirit existence. We're just sort of float around as wispy vapors. But that's not the way that heaven is described in the Bible. It's something physical. It's more than this earth. It's more than physical, but it's not less than physical. C.S. Lewis writes of heaven and he describes it as more real than anything we have ever experienced on this earth. And note the way that it's described as a bride. Adorned for her husband. I can think of no better picture of beauty on this earth than a bride walking down the aisle on her wedding day. Think of that image. It's a bride who's clothed in white. She is beautiful. She is radiant and all eyes in the whole room are transfixed on her. There is something so beautiful that it evokes joy in us just looking. Well, that's heaven. How heaven is described. Well, God doesn't stop talking about the beauty of heaven. He keeps going on with these images of beauty. It's a river of life, bright as crystal. It's a tree of life leaves for the healing of nations. Rare gyms and jewels, streets of gold. It's as if God was trying to pack in every image of beauty that he could possibly think of and give that to us so that we would understand in a small way that heaven is far greater than we could possibly comprehend. And every image of worldly beauty is just a taste of the magnificence of the beauty in heaven. But here's the thing. When we're in heaven, all of those things, all of those things that I've just described to you will fade away compared the beauty of God himself. God himself who made all things is more beautiful than all things. St. Augustine writes, the most beautiful pictures of beauty in this earth, scenes of sunsets, standing in the mountains, looking at the beauty of God's creation, looking over the grand canyon, these magnificent works of art pales into comparison with the God himself. And we will see him. We will see God and take in this breathtaking display of beauty who is God himself. Not only will we see the beauty of God, we will experience him. How many times on this earth have you asked the question in frustration and anger at times? God, where are you? God, how could you have let this happen to me? God, are you listening to me? God, are you near? Where are you? God, the psalmist, David himself, the man after God's own heart, he, he prayed this prayer often. But in heaven, we will never ask that question because we are with him. We see him. We experience him. And he is in heaven making all things new. Listen to the description. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more. Morning, grieving, crying, pain, none of these things will be existing anymore. They have all passed away. The old things will not be remembered. Listen to this, this tragedy. No more. Will there be an infant who lives but a few days? The greatest tragedy that we could experience is a baby dying. But in heaven, all of the worst parts of this world will be made new. And there will be nothing but joy, rejoicing, dwelling in peace, insecurity, no death. Only rejoicing the presence of God. The Bible pits worldly treasures against heavenly treasures and challenges us to choose which are we going to store up? Well, why is treasure such an important concept to Jesus? Well, let's keep reading. Matthew 21, a 6-21. For where your treasure is, Jesus says, there, your heart will be also. Why is treasure such a big deal? Because the treasures that we seek end up changing us. The treasures that we value, that we look after aren't just these external things that exist outside of us. These treasures that we value actually come in to us and affect us or infect us as the case may be. There's a great image of this in the Lord of the Rings. There is this nasty creature, something out of a nightmare, gollum. He is hunched over with these gangly, faint teeth, these huge eyes, and he is just a revolting being. But we realize, as you read the story, that gollum was not always that way. He used to be something of a habit. A normal creature until one day, he found this treasure, this ring of power. And he picked it up. And as he picked up, he felt that this was an ordinary ring. It had power. And so he became to treasure this. It became his precious. And it slowly began to change him. As he held this ring, as he held this treasure, his heart, and his whole being was changed for evil. Jesus is telling us, warning us, that the things that we seek after, the things that we live for start to change us in our heart. And we need to remember what a big concept the heart is to God. Jesus, over and over and over again, lambast the Pharisees. Because their outward appearance is great, but the inward condition of their heart is disease. God says in the Old Testament that man, you and I, we look at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart. Think of King David versus King Saul. King Saul, the first king of Israel, he was this impressive figure of a foot taller than anyone else around. He was handsome. He had this confidence, this bravado, when people saw him, they thought, King, this is the man. He looks the part. Samuel was so impressed with the outward appearance of Saul, but there was one problem. His heart was disease. His heart was not for the Lord. Contrast, King Saul, the King David. At the time, when King David was anointed by Samuel to be the next king of Israel, he wasn't even in the picture. Why? Because of all of Jesse's sons, he was the runt of the litter. All of Jesse's sons were in the home and he's out doing what no one else wants to do out with the sheep. Smelly and dirty is David. He's kind of like the Cinderella of the Bible. You got the step sisters who were dwelling in comfort in the house when there's Cinderella in the attic. That's David. Push the side to the point that when Samuel comes and asks Jesse, hey, show me all of your sons because God has told me that one of them will be the next king. Jesse, an excitement presents all of his sons, the oldest and strongest first, down the line to the point where Samuel becomes very confused because as he sees son after son, no matter how impressive they are on the X year, your God tells him over and over and over again. That's not the one. He's seen all the sons and finally he looks at Jesse and says, are you sure this is all your sons? Can you think of think about what a funny thing that is to say to a dad? Is this all your kids? Are you sure? Jesse's of course. Oh, well, you don't mean David. David's the one that we put kind of in the corner when people come over because we don't want him to show him off. You don't want David. Samuel says, bring David. David, this run of the litter, this smelly sheep boy comes in the house and God looks at David and says, that's the one. Why? Because he had a heart that loved the Lord. You see how important the heart is? Jesus explains this importance of the heart with this confusing saying about the eye being the lamp of the body. Let me read it and we'll unpack it briefly. The eye, this is verse 22, 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, then your whole body will be full of darkness. And if then the light in you is darkness, how great will be that darkness? Here's what Jesus is saying. He is saying there's this one organ, one tiny organ. It's your eye. And if your eye is bad, then there is no light in your body at all. It's practice together. It's this interactive portion of the storm. I would ask you now close your eyes. Very simple. Close your eyes. Everyone close your eyes. Okay. Now in this moment, if you're obeying, if your eyes are closed, there's darkness. You're not seeing anything. Now open your eyes. All of a sudden, there's light. You can see everything. You see your hands. You see your feet. You see people around you. And so this one tiny organ, the eye, brings light into the body. And so as small as this is, this one tiny organ is the control center for light in your body. So Jesus says, your heart is the control center of your whole being. And if your heart is bad, your whole body, your whole life will be corrupted because your heart isn't the Lord. And so Jesus warns us. Be careful. Be careful of what we treasure. Be careful of what's in your treasure chest. Because what's in your treasure chest will start to control what's in your heart. And what's in your heart controls everything. It's what we love. But he continues. Not only is he talking about our treasures and our heart, but he's also talking about our master, verse 24, no one can serve two masters, for 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. Do you see the escalation here? First, he talks about treasure, something you seek after in value. From treasure goes your heart, something you love and are passionate about. And from your heart goes master, something that rules over, that dominates your life. Jesus is saying, be careful what we treasure. Because what we treasure will ultimately rule us. Bob Dylan said it's best. You've got to serve somebody. Maybe the devil or maybe the Lord, but you got to serve somebody. And the Bible says, Jesus here says there's only one master that you're going to serve. Ultimately, only one. You will serve one and hate the other. Now, you may say, well, okay, so maybe I pursued money a bit too much, or maybe I'm a little too devoted to my career, to my worldly possessions. But I don't hate God. Well, the word for hate here doesn't necessarily mean the same thing we think it means, hate here using this context. It's talking about something that displaces your affection. It's saying that one master will trump the other. So you can have this mild affection for God. You can think God is a pretty great fellow. And yet, something else is the master, the dictates your life. And that's the danger for us is that we serve something else other than God. Worldly masters, the things in this treasure chest that we can pack, worldly possession, these things as masters are cruel and bloodthirsty and are out to kill us. Our history in America is a tragic history of slavery. And we think of countless examples of masters, these cruel slave owners who would brutally beat their slaves, treating them as possession, as meat. And so they would beat them and bruise them and bloody and kill them. That is what the worldly masters do to us. Money as a master. As soon as everything is taken away, you lose your job, you get demoted, some tragic thing happens, a start market crashes. As soon as money is taken away from you, the master of money beats you and laughs at you. Pleasure is taken away and it beats you and laughs at you. The worldly masters are cruel task masters but contrast that with the master Jesus.
Instead of taking the whip to beat us, Jesus takes the whip for us. As we are lying there, beaten and bloody with stripes on our backs, Jesus comes in between us and the whip and he covers us and he is striped for us. He becomes bloody to protect us. And as Jesus carries us, these slaves to sin, to safety, to the loving arms of the Father washing us, protecting us, perfecting us, he himself is beaten and bruised and crushed and destroyed. And that's exactly what happened on the cross. He did that. He took the voluntary slavery to the Roman soldiers. He became bound so that we would go free. He was hoisted up so that we would be taken down. He was tortured so that we would experience the love and the life of the abundant joy that comes only through being clothed in Christ and having a new relationship with the Lord. This is why Jesus had to die because we ourselves are slaves. We ourselves have voluntarily put ourselves into submission to these worldly masters which are going to beat us. We are captives to our own sin. And so Jesus came in knowing that we could not save ourselves. He came into the rescue attempt breaking our bonds, taking our sin upon himself, dying a sacrificial death as a lamb for our sins, removing our sins so that we could be with the Father. This is why he died. And so this is before us all today. Which master are you going to serve? What are you going to set your heart affection on? What are you going to treasure? Jesus came to give us this new life and salvation and in doing so as you cast yourself down at the foot of the cross, broken knowing that you cannot rescue yourself. Here's what Jesus does. He gives you new life and he gives you a new treasure box. Instead of a treasure box full of worldly possessions, he now invites you to seek after and store up worldly treasures. As we close this sermon, let's be clear. worldly possessions in and of themselves are not bad. The things of this earth, worldly blessings are not in and of themselves bad. It's how we seek them that makes them bad. Do we use our worldly treasures for the benefit of God? Do we use our worldly treasures as a means to the end of expanding God's kingdom, of serving God or, and here's the challenge. Hear me here. Or do we use God to build our own kingdom? Do we use God to expand our worldly treasure? If you meditate long enough on that, I believe you will feel the pain of conscience because this is such a great temptation in our society. Here's some kind of litmus test questions. You can think about this and pray about this through the week. Talk with your family about this. What do you find yourself praying most about? Your earthly circumstances? There's nothing wrong praying for earthly things, but what do you pray most about? What occupies your mental space more, your spiritual condition, your heart before the Lord, your holiness, your righteousness, God's kingdom, the salvation of your family, the salvation of your neighbors, or your worldly compass. What do you spend most time thinking about planning for if you had to choose? These are questions, diagnostic questions for you to pray about this week. If you had to choose between having a treasure chest of earthly possessions packed to the brim, but no heavenly possessions or vice versa, which would you choose? Losing everything but gaining Christ is that enough for you? Where do you spend your energy? Where do you spend your money? Are you devoted to the things of God? Do you tie? Do you give to those who are needy? We will not get this completely right, which is why Jesus did. In every way, his heart, his treasure, his master was God himself. But as our Savior, he invites us into a new life where we evaluate the treasures that we seek after and we seek to through the grace of God through the power of the Holy Spirit, replace our worldly treasures with heavenly treasures. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the goodness that we find in you. We thank you for the grace that we find in Jesus Christ. We thank you for the substitution that he was willing to make for us, taking the very wrath of God upon himself so that we would not experience that, but instead we would experience your love. And I thank you for the joy of the Lord. The joy, the blessings, the pleasures that come with being a child of God. I pray that we would make more of these pleasures, make more of these heavenly treasures that we would fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and the prospector of our faith. And I pray that all of us, whether we've grown up in the church, whether it's the first time we've entered the church, all of us, would fall down at the feet of Jesus. As our master, and as our Lord and Savior, humbly crying out for mercy. Thank you for the mercy that is in Jesus Christ. And it's in his name we pray. Amen.