Where is Your Treasure? | Store Up

Much like they always do, our worship committee

finds the perfect song to encapsulate the sermon

series. I am so excited to see what they cook

up for next sermon series, Earth, Wind, and Fire,

where we're looking at the first eight. Good

luck. But no, we start that after Labor Day.

It'll be the first eight chapters of the book

of Acts, looking at the start of the church.

But for this sermon series, where we're looking

at our time, our talents, and our treasures,

and how we store up, we're going to be in that

for the month of August. So I'm going to start

super light, right? Super nice and comfortable.

You all know I'm setting this up to be the exact

opposite. But I'm going to start with the sermon

series wrecker right now. for all of us, not

just a week, but for a month. What would someone

learn about your heart? Let's let that hang there

for a minute. What would someone learn about

your heart? You're not allowed to look to the

right or to the left after I ask this question,

okay? But what would someone learn about your

heart if they looked at your bank statement or

your Amazon order history? Just put that out

there. My office is booked for the next two weeks,

so if you have issues now in your marriage, deal

with it. Go see a counselor. But I think as we're

going to see what Jesus is going to bring us

in this section of Matthew, he basically is saying,

where your treasure is, your heart will be also.

He's not mixing his words. This is not an allegory.

This is a teaching in the Sermon on the Mount

where Jesus is inviting us to examine not just

our behavior about money and spending and where

our treasures are or our talents or our tithes

of what we talk about in church, but the orientation

of the heart. A sermon, though it can be preached

on behavior, I can preach on behavior every Sunday,

and in some ways I do, but to get to the heart

of any issue we have in life. Again, there's

a heart of it. It comes out of the heart. Things

we say, right? Proverbs tells us, out of the

overflow of the mouth, the heart speaks. And

so there's this understanding that the heart

being the center of a person. Jesus is going

to go over the next four or five weeks. It's

about what we worship, what we trust, what we

pursue. If people just see that about our lives,

it's going to tell people where our heart is.

This hits home for all of us, whether you consider

yourself wealthy or not. But anyone who struggles

with anxiety, depression, materialism, misaligned

priorities. Jesus is throwing it all there. And

the greatest sermon ever given by the greatest

preacher to ever preach Jesus Christ, the Son

of God. And he's going... We're going to walk

through this text slowly. We're going to dive

in a little bit to the languages because the

language helps us understand in more of a visual

way. Both Hebrew and Greek are just so beautifully

visual to help us understand some of these words.

And to be fair, a lot of our English words just

don't do it justice, what Jesus and others like

Paul are trying to say in the New Testament and

then those that wrote in the Old. But we're going

to talk today about the human heart, the kingdom

of God, and true stewardship. So we've got to

kind of find the dichotomy, right? The blank

versus blank. And that is the earthly versus

the heavenly treasures. And we're going to be

in chapter 6 of Matthew, the Gospel of Matthew,

verses 19 to 21 to start. Again, we use the ESV,

but whatever Bible you brought or you have on

your app, feel free to pull it up. Obviously,

if it's not the ESV, it may read a little different.

But Jesus says, 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. So we start off

in the Greek. Jesus uses the verb, right? Thesario.

which we get the word thesaurus from, meaning

to amass, to store up, and to treasure. So he's

going right off the bat. This is not just about

gathering, but it's about gathering in devotion

and direction. It's storing up. It's you looking

at the season of life to come and go, I think

I need to prep and pack for this. Okay. How many

of you have regular or semi -regular like family

reunions or kind of that one vacation you go

to every year or every other year? I know you

all do it. I don't know why you're not raising

your hand. Okay. What are some places you go

every year? Like maybe you have a lake house.

Go ahead. You go to Tennessee every year. Okay.

So you've probably been going before you were

born, right? You wouldn't know you weren't there.

Lisa, how long have you been going to Tennessee?

About five years. Okay. So the first time you

went, how much did you end up packing? You don't

even want to answer. Yeah. Mike, I'll ask you.

How much did Lisa pack? All of it. All right.

All of it. That's a very good way to, but then

have you noticed that year after year, the packing

becomes kind of less and less? Let's try over

on this side of the church. Okay, that was a

backfire. I'm going to use us, right, because

that's easy, and I think I get it, right? Osterhaus

reunion. We've done it now six times, 18 years.

Every three years we go. The first time we went,

we followed the scut rule and packed everything,

right? This last time we went a couple weeks

ago, like... We forgot stuff. Like, we just took

it from other family members. Because we learned

over time, well, so -and -so is always going

to bring it, so I don't need to. That's fine.

It's very Dutch of us. And just understand that,

you know, we're just going to do that. What Jesus

is getting at right off the bat is when we look

at things that are going on in our life, much

like squirrels get nuts for the winter, we tend

to do that. We look at what we think our needs

are going to be, and we do what we think we're

going to need. then double it, then double it.

And so what he's saying and what the Greek is

bringing us into is there is a devotion, there

is a direction to the treasures that we are storing

up. And if I'm being honest, we store up way

more than what we need. And that's what Jesus

is trying to get at. In the ancient world, treasures

weren't locked in banks. They didn't have banks.

They didn't have giant vaults where you need

a retina scan or a thumbprint or a voice thing

that I just made up. They didn't have any of

that. Where were treasures hidden? For lunch

and a conversation with Pastor Jim, where did

people hide their treasures back in kind of biblical

times? Hmm? The ground is one of them. Okay.

That's buried. That's not kind of special to

the ancient world. So we're in the parking lot,

but no lunch yet. What? Caves? Sure. Okay. Now

we've walked in. Huh? Jars of clay? We're getting

closer. Okay. We're sitting down. You have the

menu, Larry. Bring it home. Under the mattress.

They didn't have mattresses. So now we're back

in the car. We drove separately. In the coffins

of dead relatives. You're back at home. I'm back

at home. We never talked. Okay, and so understand,

they would hide them in the walls of their house.

That treasures, they were hidden in the walls.

They were buried in the ground. They were tied

up in fabrics, but hidden in the walls. When

I got that this week, when the Holy Spirit brought

that to me, reading some of the commentaries,

that spoke. That really wrecked me. That the

thing I treasure the most, I hide for fear of

moth or rust or thieves. I hide the things that

are most treasure to me. And they hid them to

protect them. When Jesus says, do not lay up

treasures on earth, he's not just warning about

wealth or the wealth decay, if you will. He's

confronting a spiritual illusion that we claim

over our wealth or over our treasures or over

our stuff. The belief that earthly things can

have eternal security. Though we know it. We

know. We say, oh, you can't take it with you.

Yet we like to hoard it. We like to store up.

The Heidelberg Catechism, question answer 95,

defines an idol for us when it says, anything

in which one places their trust instead of or

alongside the only true God. Leave that up there.

The trust. So when Jesus says, do not store up

treasures, do not put your trust in the treasures

of this world. I mean, that starts to separate

some of these treasures, right? I mean, trust

the money. Sure, we can do that. A lot of us

do, right? We trust our day is going to go well

because we start our day looking at the bank

account. The ledger seems good, right? And we're

set. So you've just set your day to look at it

financially. or maybe social media, right? We

start out, we trust what social media says, says

the fool, right? But we trust what social media

says about the day, and that's how we're going

to look at it. What Jesus is demanding of us

is do not put your trust in these things. What

you treasure, what you store up, you trust, you

hold to. If wealth is your security, Jesus is

going to tell you it has become your idol. That's

why he says put your treasures in heaven. These

aren't some abstract spiritual coins that Jesus

is talking about. Jesus is calling us to invest

in the eternal, in people, in worship, in missions,

in acts of mercy. He's saying Munster Church,

every dollar, every minute, every act of generosity,

offer in the name of Christ and it is an investment

in the kingdom. Because if it's not, then our

confession tells us, if you trust it, or I love

how the writer puts it, or alongside of the only

true God. God needs to be the top. Everything

else should be underneath it. And that's why

he talks about the heart. Because what we trust

in, what we focus on, The thing we give focus

to throughout our lives tends to be the things

that we are either insecure about, fearful of,

or trust in the most, or D, all of the above.

For he says, where your treasure is, in verse

21, for where your treasure is, there your heart

will be also. Jesus doesn't say, where your heart

is, there your treasure will follow. He reverses

the logic. Why? Why does he reverse this? He's

just a linguistic master, especially in the Sermon

on the Mount. His teaching just breaks barriers.

He turns it on itself because he understands

that treasure pulls the heart along. Let me say

that again. That treasure pulls the heart along.

The heart follows investment. I had to stop there.

I was crying like that kid because I struggle

with that. The heart follows what it invests

in. Where am I investing my time, my talents,

and my treasures? Because that shows that where

my heart is invested, my heart should be invested

first and foremost in Christ. Second should be

this group right here. Right? Third should be

the rest of you. Yet there are times that goes

cattywampus because there's other things that

come in. You know, trying to be the best, I don't

know, the best Munster manager that the town

of Munster's ever seen. I'm not, so that's really

a fool's errand, but understand that where we

invest is where your heart goes. I don't do a

lot of investing, but I'm sure there's not a

lot of people that go, sure, I'll just go invest

over there, it seems good. No, when you invest

in stuff, you want to be... focused on it. You

want to have studied it. You want to understand

kind of what you think you can understand about

the stock or whatever options you have at work.

What we focus on, what we invest. Why? Because

treasure pulls the heart. We understand in our

theology that our heart is not just an emotion,

but as the core of our being, our will, our desire,

our mind, our affections, Proverbs tells us.

If your treasure is in retirement, your status,

your lifestyle, then your heart will always serve

those masters first. But if your treasures are

in God's kingdom, your heart will beat for Christ.

You might be known as a wise investor. You might

go, oh, so -and -so did real well with their

money. That's not on happenstance. That's not

because you put it in a mayonnaise jar and buried

it. It's because you took time and effort. You

probably trusted someone maybe with your money

to make more money and all of those things. Jesus

is saying, that should be your heart to me first.

One of the great Protestant reformers, John Calvin,

writes this. And again, John doesn't really mix

his words. A human heart is a perpetual factory

of idols. This was the truth then. How much more

of it is the truth now when we have the whole

world at our fingertips? We have to understand

this about ourselves, that your heart is a perpetual

factory of idols. What does that mean? The things

you lean into, the things you focused on, the

things you invest in, those can become idols

like that. John Calvin knew it back then. He

knew what you fund, you feed. What you treasure,

you trust. Let me say that again. What you fund,

You feed what you treasure, you trust. So he

goes from two of the kind of main parts of the

body, the heart and the eyes. He says the eyes.

He talks about the eye in many different ways

in the Sermon on the Mount. But in verse 22 and

23, Jesus writes this, the eye is a 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. To me, this section feels a

little strange. The eye is the lamp of the body.

If the eye is healthy, your whole body will be

full of light. The word healthy, hapilos. Here,

it's a loaded word. It doesn't mean clear. It

means single -minded, generous, and undivided.

The opposite of it is proneros, which is just

bad. It means evil, stingy, or greedy. So put

that up there on here. If the whole body were

clear, it means if your body is single -minded,

generous, undividing, or you're... Evil, stingy,

or greedy. In Jewish thought, to have a bad eye,

rayen rahaya, meant you were stingy. A good eye,

rayen tova, meant you were generous. Jesus is

saying, the way you see the world through the

eyes of generosity or greed affects the whole

spiritual life. Let me say that again. Through

eyes of generosity or greed, that affects your

whole spiritual life. The way you see the world,

do you see the world as generous or do you see

the world as greedy? As we start this conversation

for the next month, that's the start. How do

you see the world? Because if you see the world

that way, my guess is you see yourself that way.

If you look at people as burdens rather than

souls. if you see money as yours rather than

God's, your whole life will be dark. This is

why we serve them. If the way we see the world

is the way that we serve, we serve one way or

the other. We either serve others or we serve

ourselves. 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 God and money. Remember,

what does he say? Is money the root of all evils?

No, what is? The investment, the focus, the attention

on money is the root of all evil. You cannot

serve God and money. So he's cutting it right

down the middle. Jesus ends with a choice. You

cannot serve God or mammon. You're going, that

doesn't say mammon. It says money. The word mammon

is not just money. It's wealth personified. It

became kind of an idol, a rival God. And Jesus

doesn't say you shouldn't serve both. He says

you can't. Done. You can't do it. Well, I think

I, no, you can't. Well, what if I pray? Nope,

you can't. He cuts it. The reformers were clear.

True faith produces a what? Life of obedience.

You're not saved by stewardship, but stewardship

reveals what you believe. How you steward your

gifts, your time, your talents, your wealth,

tells people what you believe. Sit with that

for about five seconds. True faith produces a

life of obedience. What Jesus is saying right

off the bat, you're not saved by stewardship,

but stewardship does reveal what you believe.

So when I thought about that, okay, how do I

land the plane today, knowing that we're going

to just pick it up next week and do this for

the next couple weeks? At the end of the day,

what I'm going to do is I'm going to call out

our comfort. Because really, If we're being honest,

we all want to live a comfortable life. And that

can mean a variety of things for you. Your comfort

could be, you could take it this way to lifestyle

and actual comfort, like you just want everything

to be a nice sweatshirt. Or you could be comforted

as, I don't want to worry about things, so I'm

going to do the things so I don't have to worry

about the things, or whatever, or somewhere in

between. Your comfort... shouldn't be about things.

The comfort should be about the gospel. The comfort

should be about what you believe because that

comfort helps in times of need. When I sat with

the Den Hartogs this week, man, we talked about

money and finances for two hours. Absolutely

not. They talked about the love they had from

a husband, from a father. When I ask them to

reflect, whenever I sit with people who lost

someone, I ask three questions. I said, what

was something that the person did that make you

laugh or think? How did they show you that they

loved you? And what about them pointed to Jesus?

It usually brings about a good conversation.

At no point was money brought up on Thursday.

Because in the end, when we're talking about

life and death, your comfort can't be in money.

Yeah, it might be legacy. You might have done

investing well and retirement well or life insurance

well, and the next generation might feel a little

lighter financially. And that's fantastic. Legacy

money, great. That's why we call it a legacy

account here. Because the money that is in our

legacy account, whether it goes to a building

or not, is not necessarily just for us in 2025.

It's for the 61 kids we have under the age of

six that this could be their church for the next

60 years. That's what legacy money is. You might

have that with your finances and your family.

Fantastic. Great. But you know what? When I sit

with families who lost a loved one, especially

one suddenly, it's never a fight for how much

did they leave me. It's more, wow, I'm really

going to miss. this about them. I'm really going

to miss that they taught me what hard work was

or I'm really going to miss, you know, one of

the things from Marty, I'm really going to miss

that they always invited everyone to the cottage

in Michigan because he wanted that vacation to

be everyone's vacation. Sure, we could talk about

the money of that and all that. But the friends,

when it comes to the end, if that's what you're

defined by, that's what people are going to talk

about. I don't know about you, but when people

are asked, when their pastor, whoever it is,

is going to ask them those three questions, what

was something they did to make you laugh? I'm

sure for some of us it's going to be easy. Some

of the things that made you think, those could

be some pretty profound things. It could just

be look both ways before you cross the street.

It could be as simple as that. It could be as

profound as my pa using every aspect of the game

of golf to teach me about dating. Just going

to leave that there. Most of it was appropriate.

But understand, when that third question comes,

what did that person show you about Jesus? Man,

I hope your families have a lot to say. I really

hope they go, wow, it was this or this, this.

They brought me to church even when I didn't

want to go. Or they made me go to Sunday school

or Lighthouse. Or they put me in cadets even

though I was nervous about it or whatever it

was. Or my dad, instead of working overtime,

my dad actually signed up to be a cadet leader

so we could do cadets together. I know we need

one more, and that's not why I said that. Because

the investment in your son in cadets or your

daughter in gems or being on the worship team

or whatever it is, that investment is far greater

to the kingdom of God than working those extra

shifts or making sure you got that bonus. And

I'm not saying working extra shifts and bonus

are bad or evil, but if that's what you're defined

by, if that's all you're going to give your family

to talk about when you're gone, let me just say

as a pastor, That's a really disappointing conversation

with your family. I don't mean to come heavy

-handed on that, but friends, when Jesus talks

about it for the next couple weeks, it's not

going to get easier. There's a reason why Jesus'

Sermon on the Mount almost initially talks about

idols and money, because he knows us. It's the

same reason why the very first commandment is

you shall have... No other gods. He didn't say

that because he goes, I don't worship. That's

going to be easy for the human race. No. As Moses

was going and getting the law, the Israelites,

who God delivered from Egypt in fantastically

awesome ways, already starting to worship something

else. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone

to leave the God I love. But here's my heart.

Lord, take and seal it. Seal it for thy courts

above. I'm going to end with this. Heidelberg

Catechism. I'll get it right one day. Question

and answer one. Munster Church. Friends of Munster

Church. Guests today. What is your only comfort

in life and in death? That I belong. body and

soul, in life and in death, not to money, not

to mammon, but to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.

So, Munster Church, as we start this discussion,

where's your treasure? Do your spending habits

reflect a heart tethered to Christ or a heart

of self -serving? Do you give joyfully, regularly,

and sacrificially, however you give, whatever

you give? Are you investing in the things that

moth and rust will destroy or the things that

last in eternity? Friends, hear me. This is my

heart. This series is not about guilting you

into giving. It's about freeing your heart. Because

when we store up treasures in heaven, we experience

the joy of heaven now. Why? Because Christ is

our greatest treasure. It's not just about what

we treasure, but who. Jesus doesn't tell us to

give. He gave everything. He didn't store up

riches. He emptied himself. He became poor so

we could become rich. He gave his life as a ransom.

Our treasure exchanged for his grace. The gospel

is not a call to give more money. It's a call

to see Christ as your treasure. So let's start

this journey now, there. Not with guilt, but

with gratitude. Because friends, we have a generous

king. So let us be kingdom investors today.