Introduction:
3 Self-Serving Reasons to Give to God (Matthew 6:19–24):
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So I Have TREASURE FOREVER . (Matt 6:19–21)
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So I Am ABLE to SEE . (Matt 6:22–23)
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So I Serve the RIGHT MASTER . (Matt 6:24)
1 Timothy 6:10 – For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
Small Group Discussion
Read Matthew 6:19-24
What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
Re-read Matt 6:22-23. Explain this in your own words. What does this have to do with money, and how does generosity affect spiritual perception?
Is it wrong to be motivated by self-serving reasons to give to God? Why or why not?
Breakout
Pray for one another.
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Open up your Bibles with me please to Matthew chapter 6.
Some time ago, I was at the funeral home for a visitation.
And as I was leaving, there was a woman standing kind of in the lobby by the exit door.
And she asked what my connection was to the deceased.
And I said, "Well, I'm a pastor and I've known the family for quite a while."
And she says, "Oh, you're a pastor."
She said, "What do you think about what Joel Osteen makes?"
You know, that's not really the time or the place to engage in a heated debate.
I said, "What Joel Osteen makes is really none of my business."
She goes, "Well, of course it is."
I said, "Why?"
I said, "What he makes and what he does with his money, it's not my business."
And she goes, "Well, it absolutely is."
And I said, "Well, man, with all due respect, if you don't appreciate his ministry, then don't give him money."
But I walked out of there just sort of confused again as to why we are so concerned with what other people do with their money.
When biblically, who should I be concerned about?
Point to the person that you should be concerned about, right here.
Right?
And we're going through the Sermon on the Mount.
In the last section we looked at Jesus, talked about giving and praying and fasting.
And those are all the elements of our private spiritual life.
But you know, you've got to deal with the world sometime, right?
You've got to get out there.
And this next section of the Sermon on the Mount is about that.
How do we deal with the world?
What is the heart towards the world?
And today we're going to talk about money.
And oh, I think we knew it had to come up in the Sermon on the Mount eventually.
Like, well, if it's such a big deal, why didn't it come up sooner?
Because Jesus has been going after our hearts, and when your heart is right, and only when
your heart is right, will your view and use of money also be right.
Look at, I just want to start, look at verse 20, just the first part here.
This is absolutely astounding.
Jesus says, "But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven."
Just stop there for a second.
That is absolutely astounding what He said.
Right there, two things.
Two things just blow me away about even that little part of the verse.
It just blows me away.
The first thing that blows me away is the fact that I can even put treasure in heaven.
It's astounding that I have the ability to put stuff in heaven.
But I got to tell you this past week, there's another little phrase in there that really
jumped out at me.
And it was the phrase, "For yourselves."
So this treasure in heaven, who's it for?
It's for me.
This is going to benefit me.
And you might be shocked to find out this morning that when you look in this section
about what Jesus says about money, there is a self-serving motive.
Actually there are three self-serving motives at play.
You know, we talked about money last fall.
We had a whole series.
What was that, Pastor in October?
It was called "Right on the Money."
Within that series, we talked about how to lay up treasure in heaven.
Quick review, we said you got to give to God intentionally, willingly, and cheerfully.
That's what the Bible says.
That's how you lay up treasure in heaven.
But here in this passage we're looking at today, Jesus doesn't talk about how.
Okay, clearly here you're going to see that Jesus talks about why we should lay up treasure
in heaven.
And the why is for us.
You know, after that sermon series last fall, oh, I preached my little heart out.
What does God say about giving?
Do you know what happened after that series?
Giving went down in the church.
I don't get it.
I don't understand how we can see clear teaching from God's Word about money and we just thumb
our nose at God and say, "Pshh, I'll show you, I'll give less."
I don't understand that.
You know, my wife, Erin, has a friend out of state that works in finance in her church.
And she was sharing with Erin that every time my pastor preaches about tithing, giving goes
down.
I don't get it.
I just don't understand it.
I just don't understand.
You know, God says, "Everything is mine.
I'm going to give some to you because I love you and as an act of love and worship, I want
you to give back to me.
And if you do, I will give you even more."
And we listen to that and we go, "Nah."
That's not for me.
Well, I want to encourage you and the Lord to really change your mind about that because
here in this passage, Jesus gives us why.
And if you believe, you will be the beneficiary of giving.
All right?
So on your outline, I want you to write some things down.
Here's three self-serving reasons to give to God.
Very clear in the passage, self-serving reasons to give to God.
Number one, write this down, "So I have treasure forever."
So I have treasure forever.
Look at the first part of 19, again, first part of 20.
And Jesus says, "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth."
But, verse 20, "But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven."
Do you see there's a two-fold command there, right?
Not hard.
It's negative and it's positive.
And then Jesus goes on to give the reason behind each of these commands.
So let's take a look at them first.
We have a negative.
All right?
Look at verse 19, the negative.
"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where
thieves break in and steal."
Like what's treasure on earth?
You know what treasure on earth is, right?
Money, houses, cars, stuff, all of the above.
Jesus is just simply saying, "Do not live your life accumulating for here."
Like, why not?
Jesus says, "How about common sense?"
Because you know it all goes away eventually.
It all goes away.
Notice Jesus talks about moth and rust and thieves.
Those weren't three arbitrary things our Lord just pulled out of the air.
The reason He said those three things is because in those days you measured wealth by three
things.
You measured wealth, first of all, by how many clothes you had.
I know that sounds strange to us, but go to some other parts of the world.
They measured wealth by how many clothes they had.
They also measured wealth by how much food they had stored.
Again, that's kind of lost on us in our culture, but in that culture, especially in that day,
you were extremely wealthy if you had food in storage.
And obviously, wealth was measured by gold, right?
So now we understand maybe a little more why Jesus selects those three images, right?
Moths.
Moths speaks to clothes.
You know something interesting about moths?
Them dusty little butterflies.
They only eat what's stored.
Did you notice that?
Moths typically don't eat what you're wearing.
They eat what's stored.
Oh, and it's kind of the same thing with food, right?
When Jesus says rust, that's not a great translation of the word.
The word literally in the Greek means eating.
What happens to stored food over time?
The varmints find it, don't they?
The mice, the bugs, they find their way to it when you store it.
And then obviously thieves, gold breaking into houses.
In those days, people often bury their treasure in the ground.
It was nothing for a thief to watch to see where somebody buried something and then go
back later and dig it up, right?
So despite mothballs, mousetraps, motion lights, Jesus here is saying very simply the stuff
that you stockpile can and will be gone in a second, right?
It's like a flower.
If I pick you a beautiful flower, it's beautiful when I pick it.
But you realize over time, a very short amount of time, that flower is going to wither away
and turn to dust.
And here Jesus is saying, oh, that's everything on earth that you try to hold onto.
Now look, it's not sinful to have stuff.
If we've learned anything from the Sermon on the Mount, what we've learned is it's
all about the motive of your heart.
And if your motive is to accumulate for yourself, you're greedy and you're foolish.
That is what your story will lose eventually.
Unless you store it in heaven, because look at verse 20, Jesus says, "But lay up for yourselves
treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break
in and steal."
Like well what is treasure in heaven?
We talked about this in our series last fall.
I'm going to give you a quick review.
Here's what we said, still true.
What is treasure in heaven?
I don't think God's Word is very specific on what that is, because I think it's something
that we wouldn't understand fully.
But there's a lot that we know about it.
We do know that it's eternal, and it's better than stuff on earth.
We know that.
We do know that believers will have treasure based on what we've done with our resources
here on the earth.
Now to be clear, Pastor Taylor talked about this.
Salvation is entirely based on the work of Jesus Christ.
Let's be clear about that.
Jesus Christ through His death and His resurrection provided salvation to those who will turn
from their sin and receive Him.
It's all based on His work.
But treasure or rewards are based on our works, and in heaven there will be different levels
of rewards.
Another thing we do know is there's no second chance for believers to earn rewards after
we die.
Basically this life on the earth right now is your chance to earn rewards.
I'm talking so much about the heart through this series on the Sermon and the Mount.
So when we get to this section, the question is, where is your heart?
While Jesus tells us objectively, in case you're still wondering where your heart really
is, do you want to know where your heart really is?
You might think you know where it is.
Jesus tells us exactly where it actually is.
Look at verse 21, Jesus said, "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
Your heart is wherever you put your treasure.
In other words, look at how you spend your money, and that will tell you where your heart
is.
So if you come to me and you say, "Oh, you know what, Pastor Jeff, my heart's with the
church.
Oh, I just have a heart for this church.
I just love this church so much.
My heart is with the church."
How much money do you give to the church?
And you're like, "Well, I don't really give that much to the church."
Well, then your heart's not with the church, according to Jesus.
According to Jesus, you've deceived yourself into thinking your heart's with the church,
but if your money isn't invested in the church, then your heart's not in the church.
All right?
Or if you're like, "Oh, Pastor Jeff, you know where my heart is, my heart of hearts.
You know where my heart is?
My heart's for missions.
Oh, I see these pictures of Barnabas and I hear about these people going on these mission
trips.
I just have, Pastor Jeff, I have such a heart for missions."
Do you give to missions?
Well, no, I don't really give to missions.
Well, then your heart's not in missions, according to Jesus, that is.
Like, well, maybe I'm not sure where my heart is.
If you're struggling with that, I'll be glad to help you.
What I need you to do is print out your bank statement, make an appointment, and we'll
sit down and go through it.
And I will show you very clearly where your heart is, because according to Jesus, where
you put your treasure is where your heart ends up.
Your heart follows your investments.
You're either investing in the kingdom of God, or you're investing in stuff that you're
eventually going to lose.
And if you're sitting here like, "Man, you know what?
I really want my heart to be on the things of God."
Or then invest in the things of God.
Give to the things of God, and you will find that your heart will follow your investments.
Your heart will be in heaven.
And according to Jesus, you're going to have treasure that you'll enjoy for eternity.
It's a pretty good self-serving motive for giving to God.
Second one, right?
This self-serving reason to give to God.
So I'm able to see.
So I'm able to see.
Like, wait, wait, wait.
That's what He says.
Look at verses 22 and 23.
Jesus says, "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 that darkness?
You're like, "Well, that's an unrelated tangent.
We're talking about money."
And all of a sudden, we're talking about eyesight.
It's not an unrelated tangent at all.
Jesus here is giving us another self-centered reason to give to God.
And this is what I'm going to tell you what it is, and I'm going to explain it.
Listen, only people who truly understand and obey what God says about money are able to
see things as they really are.
Like, well, what do you mean?
Jesus here is giving an illustration.
The eye here illustrates the heart.
And Jesus says the eye is like a lamp.
And everything that we see, what we perceive and fill ourselves with is light.
Okay?
So look at verse 22 again.
Jesus says the eye is the lamp of the body.
So if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light.
Now that word healthy in the Greek literally is the word generous.
Literally that's what the word means.
If your eye is generous.
So Jesus is saying that if your heart is generous, your whole life is going to be filled with
light.
In other words, your whole life is going to be filled with spiritual understanding.
In other words, Jesus is saying that only generous people see things as they really are.
It's only generous people who say everything is God's.
I'm just a steward of God's stuff.
In my office on the conference table, there's a big glass bowl and it's full of lollipops.
This happens all the time.
It literally just happened this morning where a little kid will come in and Pastor Jeff,
can I have a lollipop?
Absolutely you can.
And they'll take a lollipop and they'll leave.
This happens all the time.
And about 10 or 15 seconds later, they come back in and they say, I need to get one for
Joey.
I need to get one for Mikey.
I need to get one for Stacy.
And they start and then they walk out with these handfuls of lollipops.
Doesn't bother me at all because they're illustrating a very important biblical point.
And that's this.
I say it all the time.
I'm like, you're awfully generous with something that's not yours.
That's biblical.
You want to learn how to be generous?
It's not yours.
Everything on this earth is a bowl of lollipops.
It's all God's.
So it's a lot easier to be generous with it when I realize it's not mine.
I don't need to hold on to it.
So I'm getting one for Mikey.
Generous people see things as they really are.
Generous people say things like, giving is worship.
So I'm joyfully giving God first and best.
Right?
I'm not going to see how much money I have left after I buy all my toys and I'll give
God a tenth of that and pat myself on the back for tithing.
That isn't tithing and that's certainly not worship.
Tithing worshipfully is when you receive, you say, okay, God gets first and God gets
best.
That's worship.
Some of you are like, yeah, I'm on board with that.
Why doesn't everyone get that?
Because of verse 23.
"But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.
And if then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness?"
Some people don't get it because they're in the dark.
Some people are just clueless because they can't see it because they can't see anything.
Listen, when your heart is focused on the treasures of the earth accumulating for yourself,
the blinds come down on spiritual perception.
You are unable to see things spiritually.
You know, some people go to church for years.
Some people have been coming to this church for years and they do not change.
They're still struggling with the same sin that they were struggling with two years ago,
five years ago.
Why?
Because they can't see how great is the darkness.
Some people have been coming to church for years and they don't grow.
They're spiritually dull.
At this point, they should be back teaching the kids.
They should be leading a small group at this point.
They should be in the preaching class, but they can't.
They're spiritually dull.
Why?
They can't see.
How great is the darkness?
Some people never witness, never share Christ with anybody.
Even talk about witnessing like, "Well, that's not for me."
Why?
They can't see.
How great is the darkness?
They come to church and they're like, "Well, worship is boring.
The sermon wasn't for me.
The prayer was too long."
How great is the darkness?
When your heart is purely focused on earth's treasures, when you live your life only thinking
and focused and spending on here and now, you will have no spiritual perception.
Until you get your view of money right, you're never going to be able to deal with other
spiritual matters.
So here's a self-serving reason to give.
Maybe this church stuff will start to make some sense because the lights will come on.
All right?
Three self-serving reasons to give, number one, so I have treasure forever.
Number two, so I'm able to see.
Number three, so I serve the right master.
So I serve the right master.
Look at verse 24, Jesus says, "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 God and money.
Jesus here very clearly tells us that God and money are both masters.
You are a servant to one of them.
There's no third option.
And in this context, you see, you look at stuff, and you say, "Okay, all this stuff
that I have, it's either God's for God's purposes, or it's mine for what I want."
Those are your choices.
Jesus said, you know, you shouldn't try to...
You shouldn't try to...
No.
He didn't say you shouldn't try to serve two masters.
What did He say?
The last sentence, He says, "You cannot."
You cannot.
It's impossible to serve two masters.
Why is that?
The same reason a man can't have two wives.
Because we have two masters here, and both of them demand total allegiance.
Both of these masters, there's no compromise.
There's no 50/50 here.
You're going to be totally sold out to one of them.
And right now, I'm sure somebody is saying, "Well, I'm not a slave to worldly things.
I'm not a slave to accumulating."
Some of you are way more than you realize.
Because when you prioritize stuff over God, then money becomes your master.
And Martin Lloyd-Jones told this story.
I can't stop thinking about it.
He told this story about this farmer that had two cows gave birth at the same time.
So now we have two baby cows.
What is it called?
Just seeing who's still listening.
And okay, so he had two baby cows.
So the farmer excitedly goes to his wife and he says, "Okay, here's what we're going to
do.
I'm going to raise both of these cows.
And I'm going to sell one and all the money is going to God.
And then I'm going to sell the other and all the money we're going to use for our family."
And his wife says, "Well, which cow is which?
The white one or the brown one?
Which one's God's and which one's ours?"
And the man says, "Ah, you know what?
We'll worry about that later.
We'll take care of that down the road somewhere."
Well, a couple days later the wife walks into the house and the farmer was weeping.
And the wife says, "Honey, what's the matter?"
And the farmer goes, "God's cow died."
That's funny, isn't it?
It's really not because it's always God's cow that dies.
It's always God's cow that dies.
You know, you've got a sports tournament and church at the same time.
You've got to go with the sports.
It's always God's cow that dies.
I'm not saying you're anathema if you miss church.
I'm saying it's a huge red flag as to the way you're discipling your children when you
teach them that anything else takes priority over church.
When does worship ever have the priority?
Are you discipling your kids to that?
It's always God's cow that dies.
It's like, well, we have youth group tonight, but we also have a dance recital.
We can skip youth group because it's always God's cow that dies.
You know, I really wanted to join a small group, Pastor Taylor, but you know what?
I got this hobby that takes up most of my nights.
So it's always God's cow that dies.
And oh, yeah, we're talking about money.
When money becomes tight, giving to God is the first thing to go because it's always
God's cow that dies.
Who's your master?
I'll give you a real easy test.
I'll give you a real easy test that will tell you where your heart is.
Has this sermon really bothered you?
If this sermon is really grating on you, so long as I have accurately represented what
our Lord has said, if this sermon is really grating on you, according to Him, it's going
to be grating on you.
That means you love money and you hate God.
If you're sitting here, and if you're going to be totally honest, and you resent the truth
that God has a total claim on your life, then that means, in the words of our Lord, you're
devoted to money and you despise God.
But you know, if you're generous, it sort of works the other way.
If you're generous towards God, you hate that the world is constantly trying to take more
of your money.
You hate when gas prices go up, you hate when grocery prices go up, you hate when your taxes
go up, because you sincerely respond to that by saying, "Oh, I wanted to give more, and
that's keeping me from that."
And you hate that because you love God so much.
You've got a master.
The stuff I have, the money I make, is it to serve God or is it to serve me?
Because if it's to serve you, ultimately, you're serving it.
Look, at the end of the day, money is just a tool.
Money's not evil.
Money's not inherently good.
Money is just a tool.
But money is the most dangerous tool that you possess, because Jesus said that is the tool
that you will use to replace God.
You know, there's so many self-serving, personal benefits to giving to God.
Oh yes, the opposite is true too.
Nothing to God blesses you, but when money is your master, you hurt yourself.
Literally hurt yourself.
Look at 1 Timothy 6:10.
God says through the apostle Paul, "For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils.
It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith."
Look at this, "And pierced themselves with many pangs.
The person who worships money by the way they live end up repeatedly stabbing themselves."
So if you're sitting here at this point in the sermon and under your breath, in your
head, in your heart, you're sitting here digging your heels in saying, "No one tells
me how to spend my money."
Look, I earned this.
It belongs to me.
Okay.
But I have an obligation to tell you that you're just stabbing yourself.
So if God isn't your master, who are you hurting?
On the other hand, giving it to God so I can keep it forever, letting the light shine in
that only comes to a generous heart, and serving a master who loves me and only wants good
for me.
I got plenty of self-serving reasons to give to God.
Let's pray.
Our Father in heaven, I'm sure this was a very uncomfortable several minutes for some
people.
That's okay.
God, we didn't come here today for comfort.
We came here to hear from You.
And yes, sometimes God, You do comfort us with the truth.
And Father, there are generous people sitting in this room that are comforted by all of
the benefits that You have promised those who are generous.
Father, I pray for those who are still holding on so tightly to stuff.
I pray, Father, that this would be a time of some serious self-examination, and that
they would not take the words of Jesus Christ lightly.
But Father, I pray You would give them no rest until they seek to get this money issue
right before You.
It's worship, Father.
It's worship.
Let us worship You with the stuff that You've given us.
We pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.
