Faith Baptist Church
4258 Botetourt Road
Fincastle, Virginia 24090
(540) 473-2325
Matthew 6:19-21, 24
We are living in trying times and when trying times arrive they test our level of personal commitment to God, and they test the level of our biblical contentment. These trying times test our resolve to trust God. The financial crisis our country is going through is touching every person in this country in one way or more. People are shuffling their retirement portfolios. They are watching the Dow averages drop as if they are watching the heartbeat of America. Many are fearful of opening up their 401 statements. The future for so many looks grim indeed. Some of these aforementioned statements represent a composite of news paper articles and television commentators’ remarks.
All of these statements show the futility of putting our trust in the god of materialism. The current financial meltdown our nation is undergoing is a fulfilled prophecy of Matt.6:19. The verb lay not is a [present active imperative verb] of the Greek word, me thesauros. This word refers to a receptacle or a storehouse where treasures are accumulated. You have to keep your eyes on this accumulation of goods so no one will steal it. You have to tend to this money constantly because some form of corruption is at work either in stealing it or it is loosing its luster and its value. The present tense of the word corrupt means constant potential corruption of your money keeps you constantly enslaved to its needs.
We are supposed to use money to serve our needs as God directs, but too often we serve our money as our wants direct. We cannot serve God and money for each are demanding at the same time. We have to make a choice. We need money, but our Father in heaven knows all of our needs and he will supply them accordingly. Matt.6:25-34 read...
v. 20 We are commanded to lay up [present active imperative verb] of thesauros. We see this word thesauros again, but here we find what kind of treasures we are to lay up. These treasures are more than a word treasury or storehouse of words as you might see in the thesaurus on you desk.
We are to lay up treasures in heaven. The treasures you and I lay up in heaven are sent ahead of our homegoing. We are the aliens in this world because our citizenship is in heaven. We work in this foreign land and as God’s migrant workers we send the fruit of our labors back home to enjoy when we arrive there one day. We do not take these treasures with us when we die, we send them ahead. One of the problems in Christianity today is that we want our rewards now. We practically demand instant gratification for our works and so often many saints will not work for the Lord or allow the Lord to work for them if they do not get the praise they expect from their works.
These treasures are the good works we allow God to produce in our lives as we allow God to conform us to the image of Jesus Christ. These treasures reflect the righteousness of God as seen in our secret and our open lives. God doesn’t need a big building or a large crowd to build a great Christian, he needs a teachable devoted heart to be a storeroom into which to impute his divine blessings.
v.21 “For where you treasure is, there will your heart be also.” We have a choice as to what we want to treasure in our hearts, and our attitudes toward the word of God defines our real treasure. To lay up our treasures in heaven is to lay hold of God’s righteous word on earth now.
As we offer our talents, our legitimate monetary treasures, and our time to His word and his work we simultaneously store in heaven eternal treasures. These treasures will be parlayed into eternal rewards which will forever reflect God’s worth to us while we lived on this earth. So I ask, “Are we investing our time in learning His word?” Do we have the patience to learn? After all we are told to redeem the time and the word redeem means to buy up every available opportunity to learn His word, Eph.5:15;Col.4:5.
v.22-23 read...
If we see with spiritually healthy eyes our whole person will be spiritually healthy, but if we see with spiritually unhealthy evil eyes our whole person will be spiritually unhealthy and our outlook will be dark. That darkness is so great today.
v.24 “No man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” The verb cannot comes from the same word as the word, power plus the negative ou, ou dunasthe, [present active indicative verb] means you do not have the power to constantly serve, God and money at the same time. The word, serve is from our word meaning a slave, a doulos, and it is also in the present tense. The present tense represents continuous action at present time having present results. Our Lord Jesus Christ is telling us that we cannot keep a lifestyle of habitually serving God if we also have a lifestyle of habitually being a slave to our materialistic wants. A slave cannot serve two masters. Is your master the Son of God or is your master everything under the sun?
Prov.23:4 “ Labor not to be rich; cease from thine own wisdom. Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not? For riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away like an eagle toward heaven.”
Brethren, we need stability today and we are foolish to think the government or big business is the answer. The answer is God and the solution is in trusting him. Ride out the storms of life with the Lord. He will see you safely to the shores of your eternal destination. Make sure you are in the Lord’s rescue boat. Make sure you are saved and you have eternal treasures which no man can steal away.