Which means that you and I are about to have to render under Caesar the things that are Caesar's We will have to pay our taxes and for some of you that's a great thing because you're gonna get a refund check and for others Of you you don't approach that date with same quite the same amount of relish as those that are getting a refund check But what is true of everybody? Who has to file a return is that as you fill out that return you have to do a little inventory You got to kind of figure out where did it all go last year? It cost that much you discover and then you find yourself being surprised because you wonder now Why is it that I spent that much in this direction and what did I believe? That would make me want to invest myself in these ways and it's really sort of a Jarring astonishment to you that how aloof you can become by how well you nickel and dime yourselves to death in ways that you never imagined The primary subject of today's text from Jesus's words is about our investments Which has a broader sense than just a financial sense and will impact that here shortly But just as all of us when we file our taxes it requires a certain inventory and God forbid an audit There is something to be said for the necessity of an audit of our own souls when it comes to thinking about how we're invested in all life In this room, there is a diversity of socio-economic status We exist somewhere on a spectrum But all of us in this room when it's compared to the rest of the world are pretty much on the most furnished and well-to-do people on that spectrum and that is why Jesus must say what he does Because it is our default position regardless of what tax bracket you're in for us to default Toward thinking that this world is all there is we're going to consider what Jesus says in three parts What kind of investment strategy he's making us having us make? What reasons he calls us to that in other words what motivations must be in place and Then we're going to ask how do we begin to apply that investment strategy? Let me say one more word of prefacing David Martin Lloyd-Jones says that a congregation can ruin a preacher When he makes their affirmation his primary sustenance for his soul When he makes their encouragement everything under him because when he does that He is more likely to tell them only what they want to hear if a congregation can ruin a preacher I think on this text a preacher can return the favor
Because I have felt the weight of what this text says and I realize that it will be really easy for me either To shame you into despising everything that's material about your life Or I could coddle you into an oblivious form of ongoing self-indulgence Or I could just throw a lot at you and confuse you with a lot of big words and leave you pretty much Unaffected such that nothing changes if I go to any one of those three places. I have contributed to your ruin And that's why I've had to pray Matthew chapter 6 Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where Moth and Russ destroy and where thieves break in and steal But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven Where Moth and Russ cannot 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 the light in you is darkness how great is the darkness no one can serve two masters for either you'll hate the one and love The other or he'll be devoted to the one and despise the other you can't serve God and money This is the word of the Lord Favetter whatever you have for us in these words of your son would you help us to hear them? And to rest our lives in in Jesus name amen There's no parable. There's no flourish here. Jesus cuts to the chase He lays down his instruction with great succinctness. He says don't lay up treasures for yourselves on earth Do lay up treasures for yourselves in heaven? Quick easy and dirty. There it is What does he mean? You could jump to some conclusions about what he means by that specifically in the distinction he makes about heaven and earth You you might interpret the distinction as Jesus saying hey heavens up here earth down here never the twain shall meet What's up in heaven pure good lovely? That's what you want what's down here on the earth nasty evil putrid stay away from it and The only true life you'll ever have is the one that you'll have once you get to heaven, but down here gag That's the impression you could get if you make a hasty reading of what Jesus means here But consider it in context Two paragraphs earlier Jesus teaches us to pray Our father who art in heaven. How it would be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth As it isn't heaven apparently he has some regard for this place this time this way Yes, there's a distinction between heaven and earth, but not a separation But a hierarchy of importance because he's not asking us to pray for the obliteration of the earth He's asking us to pray for the alignment of heaven and earth Consider the fact also that Jesus came here God didn't just shout down instructions, but he actually entered into our condition And there are some moments where we actually find Jesus the sun enjoying the pleasures of this world
Consider also the fact that he came in the flesh in a material body and then he was resurrected in a material body not as a ghost not as an apparition, but it's just like you and me If we assume that God has no regard for the material world, then why in the world did he come in a material form?
Of course the the slam dunk plank of this case that causes us to maybe have a more nuanced view of the distinction between heaven and earth Is the fact that Jesus says in Revelation 21 5 I came to make all things new a new heavens and a new earth would be ushered in through him That's what Isaiah looked forward to that's what the Apostle Peter looked forward to And so when Jesus starts making this distinction saying lane up treasures in heaven whatever that means We know at least it doesn't mean that he thinks the world is worthless or That all that matters to him is the here after not the here or the now That's a more nuanced view Which means maybe that we maybe need a more nuanced view of the word treasures
Treasures are more than dollars and cents though that's certainly in mind here treasures are anything we place value on It can be possessions Absolutely, but it can also be our reputation It can be our station It can be our roles our relationships our responsibilities All those have value to us and therefore we give time and attention to them. They are our investments So when Jesus is saying lay up your treasures in heaven not on earth I think he's getting to this simple point and here's his instruction You and I Have to let heavenly priorities shape all our earthly investments Say it again, we have to let heavenly priorities shape all our earthly investments With the understanding that many times those heavenly priorities have a very earthly context giving to the poor working justice Demonstrating mercy That happens here that happens today See Jesus demonstrates all of those virtues while he was here He gives us a taste of them, but when Jesus promises to make all things new when he returns He's not asking us to wait before we get started demonstrating those same virtues in ourselves He's not asking us to wait for a second coming until we start undertaking the renovation work that he exemplified in his first coming Now, let's be clear The renovation work that he calls us to in every corner of the world in the kingdom Depends entirely on the finished work of Jesus's life Death and resurrection. It does not happen apart from that He is our model for that work of renovation. He is the source of power for that renovation And so yours in my task is simply this We have to we get to we're privileged to seek to make him known So that this rule begins to operate more like where God's rule is unimpeded Like heaven. That's what it means to lay up treasures for yourselves in heaven While on earth now why then is he making the distinction at all? Why if there's this fusion between heaven and earth? Why does Jesus seem to be speaking in sort of foreboding and warning tones? Clearly he's not saying he has no regard for this world I don't think he's even saying it's a sin to enjoy good things in this world But he is saying this You and I cannot live as if this world where all there is
That what you get here is all you'll ever get and that this is good as it's ever gonna get so you better get all you can That's what he's warning against that's where you and I drift to instinctually
Now I know that sounds a little bit abstract so let me see if I can make it really concrete Maybe some of you have been still following the story of Mike Daisy over the last few weeks He's a he's a writer. He's an actor. He's a speaker two years ago He goes to China. He begins to inspect the factories that are responsible for fabricating iPads and iPhones and he Through his own investigation corroborates some of what the New York Times had discovered well He comes back with interviews of men that had had their hands mangled in little machine presses as they're making iPhones and iPads And he came back with interviews of people that have been Scalded by a chemical used to clean the glass on the iPads and iPhones and he comes back and compiles all of his story And all of his interview and he turns it into an off-Broadway monologue called the agony and ecstasy of Steve Jobs And it goes crazy meteoric he gets invited on the talk show circuit Ira Glass NPR this American life great storyteller invites Mike Daisy and devotes the entire hour to what Mike Daisy said and In the 15-year history of this American life on NPR most downloaded episode Two weeks later Somebody does some fact checking and finds that Mike Daisy had fabricated much of his information and Remarkably I reglass invites him back to the studio and says did you lie? And he said I don't know that I would say it's that way He dissembles and shuffles around but finally he speaks rather candidly when I reglass as why did you lie? And Mike Daisy says this I Think I was terrified that if I untied these things that the work that I know is really good and tells a story that does these Really great things for making people care that it would come apart in a way where it would ruin Everything to live here as if there were all this if if as if this was all there was Is to be so committed to something or someone that if you lost it you think you yourself are lost To use his language it's to think that if something gets ruined your whole life is ruined
We can do that with wealth. We can do that with anything
That's what it means to lay up treasures for yourselves on earth because that's the kind of life that has no reference to the larger picture No reference to the kingdom of God that surrounds you and that is advancing whether you help or not
So what's the opposite what will be an illustration of what it really does look like? Anybody seen Downton Abbey New series PBS two seasons about a family in Just to the turn to 20th century they live in a 56 room mansion Huh, it's the story about that family and and their interplay with all of the servants that live downstairs This Lord and Lady of the mansion Lord and Lady Grantham they have three daughters These daughters don't just walk around in flowing dresses. They glide and the youngest Of those three daughters is named Sible. They're all adults They're all born into privilege They all respect that privilege. They enjoy the trappings of privilege and then World War One breaks out And it's actually their privilege that affords them the opportunity to help in a significant way and Sible is changed in the process of going through them Such that when World War and World War One ends everything's go back to normal, but not for Sible She can't go back to living the way she did She's found that there's more to this world than the world of privilege that she knew She's not disgusted by what's available to her, but nor does she define herself by that privilege She doesn't feel entitled to maintaining that life and she doesn't feel like life's gonna lose its lustre if she forsakes it A new circumstance brings a new awareness which leads to a new orientation It's a larger world And that larger world shapes her new investments in everything such that she even marries the chauffeur who's a good Irishman Yes, good girl Jesus in this text is in some sense advocating a sibling theology That belief that this world for all its wondrousness is not all there is And though there's nothing shameful about appreciating what is quality or what is elegant nor is that the kind of life The gravitational center of an abundant life
Letting heavenly priorities shape your earthly investments Is investing your life in ways that depend on God So that what happens in your corner of the earth Starts to operate a little bit more like it doesn't happen That's what he's asking us Now what he asks has its own motivations that I think are pretty implicit But Jesus specifies three motives For adopting his investment strategy About the confidence that we have in the way we invest ourselves The coherence to that investment And the contentment with it Confidence in it coherence to it Contentment with it First motive Jesus's investment strategy is meant to instill in us a greater confidence in what we're living for He clearly makes a contrast Between laying up treasures for yourselves on earth versus in heaven The former being as if this world where all there is and if that's the way you operate Then all of your possessions are subject to decay and all of your investments are subject to default you know that Cars break down houses deteriorate bodies and faculties and beauty all degrade And if that's all you invest in If that is your confidence Then your confidence rests on what is bound for dissolution
And there's part of us that wonders from time to time Whether all this activity is of any matter
Especially if it's all either headed to the ashyp or somebody else's purview Maybe you remember the scene in shadow lands When Anthony Hopkins who Anthony Hopkins he plays C.S. Lewis He is sitting in the library with his stridently atheist colleague named Christopher And he's really having sort of a vocal but interior moment because he's reflecting on the fact that his wife is dying of cancer in hospital And he sits there and he looks up and he says to Christopher Do you ever feel a sense of waste and his usually off-putting friend Says without the least bit of sarcasm. Yes, of course
Compare that scene with a moment that flashes by you if you're one of the 120 million people who has sat for 30 minutes to watch that 2012 video There's a moment where a young woman who is there to rally the troops To seek to bring justice to Joseph Coney Says if he comes to justice this will Define us See brothers and sisters and honored guests there is part of us that wants it all to matter And part of us that wonders if any of it matters And so we go in a million different directions in search of confidence that our efforts are not in vain And Jesus says to us in this passage more or less you want confidence that your life is not a waste Let my priorities shape your investments
Because of who you're doing it for For the God who has established this kingdom who will sustain this kingdom and sustain you in the work of it such that whatever happens to you in your work in that remark It has its own intrinsic worth
Confidence comes from knowing who you're doing it for but also knowing and what the kingdom of God is all about To work for his kingdom is to see men women and children coming to a restored communion with the one who made them And work to see virtues that define the kingdom percolate into every corner of the world virtues that are timeless The transcend culture and language and dialect I've quoted a line from Mark Helperen's novel a winners tale that I read back in college and it is stuck with me forever But it's a moment when the protagonist of the book remembers what his father once told him his father said to him when he was young Little men spend their days in pursuit of such things like wealth fame and possessions I know from experience that at the moment of their deaths they see their lives shattered before them like glass I've seen them die they fall away as if they have been pushed and the expressions on their faces are those of the most unbelieving surprise Not so the man who knows the virtues Ideas are in fashion or not and those who should prevail are often defeated It doesn't matter though The virtues are themselves With which we can protect our vision of beauty and the strength by which we stand unperturbed in the storm that comes when seeking God
This investment strategy that Jesus is prescribing is meant to give us greater confidence than anything else could provide us That's the first motive here's the second When Jesus says that the eye is the lamp of the body He means that how you and I see Really is everything if we see reality you can walk according to reality if you see what is a false view of reality You're stuck in a blind alley And the worst condition you can be in Is to be convinced that your false view of reality is a true one
Jesus is saying Despite yours and my astounding powers of perception and discernment We can still end up seeing things exactly opposite from what they are and be convinced of it
And when it comes to how we live and the investments we make Jesus implies that it is possible for us to see everything we treasure in ways that are not true
We can be duped We can treat things that are ephemeral as if they were eternal We can treat things that are secondary as if they were ultimate. How do I know that? Look at children around you They cling so tightly to some things sometimes thinking if it's gone. It's they're gone I'm reading a shell silverstein poem to my kids last night it goes like this now. I lay me down to sleep I pray the Lord see now I lay me down to sleep I Pray the Lord my soul to keep if I should die before I wake Please take all my toys so that my friends can't play with them. Amen
They believe that and if they knew they could pray that they probably would And that's cute But we don't grow out of that instinct very easily
If you watch the documentary of Kevin Clash Who happens to be the puppet behind Elmo You will hear him speak very candidly About how being a puppeteer Almost cost him his very daughter At the age of 15 his daughter writes him a letter and says dad I'm in the house for three more years I'm all about Elmo But I'm wondering if I could spend some of my time with you so talented Had such a ability to connect with children with something that was so popular and yet it cost him to invert his world
It can happen to pastors too Go to Justin Taylor's blog this week And you'll read the testimony of an anonymous pastor who said he was hard-charging for church growth and theology and evangelism But he never loved his wife and his marriages and tatters Anybody can have an inverted logic And that sort of logic leads to an incoherent existence
It is a blindness to which we are all prone And we don't grow out of it easily And that's why I see a sluice has to say if you read history You'll find the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they become so ineffective You might say incoherent there Aim at heaven you'll get earth thrown in aim at earth you'll get neither of them Jesus's investment strategy leads to a more coherent existence because you're no longer being duped by this seduction That this world or your accomplishments are all there is because when you go there what you sacrifice is always more than what you gain
That's the second motive Here's the third It has to do with our contentment When Jesus says you can't serve two masters. He's talking about human nature true abiding devotion can only have one object You can have a myriad of interests But you can only have one overarching passion that many times is really subconscious All our greatest desires are really centered on one desire And Jesus says specifically greed and godliness are mutually exclusive passions They can't exist simultaneously The love of what more money promises must either yield to what the love of what god promises or it must subdue that love Greed does that Because greed is just one more way to seek to prove that you matter It's why we hoard it It's why we parade it It's why we fear giving it up Because we think that's what will make us matter But any number of things as I've said before Can substitute for wealth and serve the same purpose affirmation Attention power you can deploy innumerable means to secure any of those things just to justify your existence And Jesus is saying in that paradox that if we're making anything other than god is what makes us matter We are consigning ourselves to a life of discontentiveness Because greed for anything is by definition never satisfied with what it has and always anxious about what it might lose
It invites anxiety because it's not content and that's why GK Chesterton can say the only way you can think you have enough Is either to get more or want less Jesus is letting us in on a little intuitive secret
You can either be greedy for the esteem of what this world offers Or you can be greedy for the pleasure of god The former will always leave you discontent But the latter will not Because there's no uncertainty about the steadfastness of god's pleasure in you Why? Because you're nice No On what basis can I make such an audacious claim There's something in the background of jesus instrument on the mount that's about the shift to the foreground It's a motive that's in the background But which holds all these other three motives together and even makes them possible It's his cross This investment strategy gives us confidence in how we spend coherence to what we do with our investments and contentment with them But it is the cross that holds them all together Thomas Chalmers wrote a famous sermon about the explosive power of a new affection and he said with sobering clarity That I can say to you until and blue in the face your stuff will never satisfy you And you might believe that for a day But there's only one thing that will really displace and an ordinent attraction to the things of this world And that is the love of god in christ at the cross
It makes an argument the cross does It argues that your greatest need is something you can't obtain It's not food, water, shelter, clothing It's not even meaning purpose, marriage, self-actualization, none of that Your greatest need is reconciliation and communion with god
You and I are estranged from him and as a consequence we are blind to him and we build our realities on things That cannot Subtain the test of time
The cross argues That you have built your house on sand if that is your life and by his death he has come to relocate your house upon a sure ground It argues that is your greatest need And the cross also argues what your greatest joy is
Your greatest joy you can't obtain either You can't buy it you can't learn it You can't inherit it Your greatest joy is not found in the amassing of much or in the receiving the most accolades It's in receiving the commendation and the accolade of god
It comes from having that commendation from god and it comes from glorying in it By reflecting the same character as the one who gives you the commendation
That character of god is lavish with his gifts He is creative and timely in giving them and he is faithful and loving to offer them even when we don't deserve them in fact because we don't deserve them That is his character and our joy is found in reflecting it
So how do we apply this investment strategy with those motives Brothers and sisters it begins with praying I read this week that it was said of Leo Tolstoy But he admired Jesus But hardly loved him Paul says at the end of his letter and first Corinthians Anyone who does not love the Lord Jesus Let him be accursed Which sounds really harsh But when you see it in context you understand that what Jesus intends for us Is that we would Love him He doesn't ask Peter around that charcoal fire in John chapter 20 Peter Do you respect me Peter Do you think my teaching is profitable for your life Peter do you think following me will allow your life to flourish He asks Peter Do you love me if Thomas Chalmers is right about our affections If the love of God In Christ is the only power capable of Displacing an excessive attachment to what is here Then you and I have to do a check to see if our regard for Christ is really one of love Otherwise no adjustment to our investment strategy will ever get off the ground much less be succinct That sort of check is done in prayer This internal audit begins with prayer Not only of our love for him But then our sense of us being part of a kingdom work And us meditating upon Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven such that we ask ourselves In my corner of the earth In my home in my school in my workplace in my neighborhood How might I participate in seeing The virtues of the kingdom infiltrate everywhere where I am
The internal audit requires praying
It also requires asking ourselves hard questions
Like how I'm presently invested and why I am Why I spend the way I do and for what purpose what whole do I try to fill at times by the purchases That I make and has it ever been satisfactory in filling that whole
And then we have to live with the question Am I more positioned to be available for the work of the kingdom now than it was five years ago Is more of what I live for in the service of what Christ died for
Or have my investments of time talent and treasured Subscribed to a more truncated view of reality This internal audit starts with prayer Continues with asking and it ends Rather than begins a fresh with repentance
It's not a matter of if we drift into a mode of thinking that this world is all there is it's a matter of how much Our praying And our answers to those questions will inevitably call us to repentance to make changes small in large So that heavenly priorities shape earthly investments
Brothers and sisters rendering under Caesar the things that are Caesar's is an annual event But rendering unto God the things that are gods are a continual event
And that is why it is worth also meditating on the fact that it is better to give than to receive Why Jesus? Because you will always have What you gave for love of the kingdom in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit