The Kingdom of Heaven - Here and Now | Matthew 6:19-34

Welcome to Preaching from Bryanson Bible Church, located in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg, South Africa.

It is our prayer that this teaching would bless you, deepen your love for God's word, and encourage you as you follow Jesus.

And if you're not a Christian, we pray that this message would encourage you as you explore the Christian faith.

How are we all doing this morning?

Oh my goodness.

Okay, guys, it's a 1030 service.

Come on.

Thank you.

Um, I wonder if you've ever had this question.

How do I really get to know someone?

Like, how do I find out what really is beneath the surface?

If I can if I can give you some friendly advice, it would be this.

Play a board game with them.

The polite, well-mannered friend or the person you know from work, maybe the kind and loving family member, maybe even your spouse.

Who are we kidding?

It's possibly even you.

Becomes someone entirely unrecognizable the moment your opportunity to win is threatened.

You see it in their eyes.

They send daggers your way.

Their jaw begins to tighten, their voice begins to change.

All because their opportunity to win is now threatened.

There is something about competition that shows you what's actually underneath.

Early on in my dating relationship with my now wife, I unfortunately discovered this about myself.

One particular board game caused a serious frustration that bubbled from the depths of my being, and there was nothing, nothing that could calm the frustration that felt like it existed on the scale of a volcanic eruption.

Why?

Why, you might ask?

Because my wife always won.

Always.

And there was nothing that I could do to beat her.

There was a sign in the front here, like clearly someone's resonating with me.

Now, if you think that was bad, this game caused so much frustration that we literally had to ban it in my dating relationship for the sake of our relationship.

For some reason, what this game brought out in me was a deep desire to win.

Because it was orientated around a gameplay that said you have to build your own kingdom.

And so you win the game by being the best kingdom on the board.

And so naturally, what arose in me was this desire.

My kingdom would dominate all others.

But alas, it didn't happen.

And any time my wife or anyone else stood in my way, what ended up happening?

The frustration just grew.

Now, I asked my wife earlier, and thankfully she agreed with me.

I've matured since then, praise the Lord.

But as I reflect back on this season, I realized that this game was revealing something to me about my heart.

Now, as I've pondered it, I realized that this wasn't just a me problem.

I'm not externalizing here, it's true.

It was a humanity problem.

And the problem is this we all want to build our own kingdoms.

And we don't want anyone or anything to get in the way.

I mean, think about your own life for a moment.

Maybe you're building the kingdom of your own career, where you will sacrifice and compromise anything for the sake of getting on top.

Maybe you're building the kingdom of your own self-satisfaction, where it doesn't matter what you take, doesn't matter what you do, doesn't matter who you do it with, as long as it leaves you with some degree of pleasure.

Or maybe you're building the kingdom of your own finances, where enough just isn't enough, and you actually don't believe the lie anymore that says one day it will be.

Because underneath all of this accumulation is the quiet, relentless anxiety that says if you stop reaching, you stop accumulating and everything falls apart.

Friends, just as we build kingdoms in board games, there are actually so many ways that we build kingdoms in our own lives.

So in our text this morning, what Jesus is doing is he's going to press us in an area where all of us in this room are prone to building kingdoms with money and finances.

Money and finances.

So Jesus, knowing the state of the human heart, he does something disorienting and deeply challenging in the Sermon on the Mount.

This is our anchor text that our series is rooted in from the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 5 to 7.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

And what he does here is he compares and he contrasts two kingdoms.

The kingdom of the earth, in our case this morning, money, and the kingdoms, or the kingdom rather, of heaven.

Scholar Jonathan Pennington helps us understand this challenging tension between these two kingdoms when he says the following.

He says, the inbreaking of the kingdom of God that has come in the Lord Jesus is radically different from the way you and I naturally think and act, and different from the way we structure human society.

It's unexpected, shocking, and topsy-turvy to human sensibilities.

And so this morning, what's going to happen is you and I are going to be challenged by a question.

This question, friends.

Where are you building your kingdom?

In which kingdom are you placing your trust, hope, your peace in the kingdom of money or in the kingdom of heaven?

And then after pressing us here, Jesus is so good and so kind because what he then does is he reveals the king of the kingdom of heaven and why we can trust in him.

And so two points that we're covering today, BBC.

First one is this your treasure reveals your kingdom.

And secondly, your king secures your peace.

So let's jump in together and let's see how your treasure reveals your kingdom.

Jesus says in Matthew 6, 19 to 21, he says, Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and 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.

Wealth and material possession in the time of Jesus was oriented around the accumulation of the gathering of as much as possible precious metals and fabrics as a means of attaining one's financial security.

A modern-day equivalent for us, if we were to bring this to our day and age, is when you open up your banking app, whatever that might be, and you go, man, I really wish there was another zero on the end of that number.

Or maybe it's the desire to see growth in your long-term savings account.

And what Jesus is doing here is he's challenging the very means that people draw on to sustain their lives by commanding them that those who follow him, that those who follow after Jesus, who say that they're in the kingdom of heaven, do not orient their lives around the accumulation of, the pursuit of material possessions.

And one of the ways that he does this, friends, is he begins by making it absolutely blatantly clear that there is a futility in the pursuit of treasures on earth.

Material possessions.

Why?

Because they do not last.

He shows that material possessions are subject to decay.

Moth.

Well, in the context that Jesus is speaking of, moth eats at the fabrics, rust at the metals, and if that doesn't do it, thieves break in and steal.

There is a futility to earthly treasures.

And so possessions in the kingdom of heaven do not last.

And so consequently they should not be pursued as ultimate avenues upon which we ground our hope and our security.

And yet, even as you're sitting here this morning, there's a tension that you might be feeling internally.

Why?

Because society and culture, the kingdoms of this earth, have so conditioned us to believe that this is what life should be.

I need to pursue and chase after wealth for my security.

That's what the kingdoms of earth tell us.

The cultural philosophers of our time have made mention to this.

Madonna.

Now, before you think I'm going to sing for you, I'm not.

But Madonna says we are living in a material world, and I am a material girl.

Madonna says that, not me.

What about Abba?

Abba says, money, money, money.

Man, it must be funny in a rich man's world.

Friends, you don't have to look far to see that the kingdoms of earth want us, want you to pursue material possessions and money.

Want you to pursue the things that ultimately do not last.

What I love though, in contrast to this, is Jesus commands his followers in verse 20 saying, But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal.

And so the question that we need to ask ourselves then, BBC, is what are these treasures in heaven that Jesus is calling us to pursue?

What are these treasures in heaven that are not subject to decay?

Generally speaking, biblically speaking, heavenly treasure is anything that a believer can carry with them beyond death.

Godly character, faithful obedience, lives one and discipled for Christ, so that when you stand before your Savior and you behold him in splendor and you have achieved the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls, he places on you the crown of glory and says, Welcome home.

Now, what does that mean specifically in our scriptural context this morning?

It means that for those who belong to the kingdom of heaven, their lives should evidence that their money, their material possessions be used intentionally for God and for the care of others' needs.

And then as you do so, friends, as you use your material possessions and wealth in this way, what you're then doing for yourself is storing for yourself an inheritance that, as verse 20 says, is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading.

And what we're challenged to see here is that it is not so much about how much or how little you have, but how you use, how you steward the resources given to you by God.

Do you store them for your kingdom of one?

For your kingdom of self?

Or do you freely use them for the furthering of the kingdom of heaven?

Jesus, as if he hasn't pressed us enough, presses us even further.

And he says something unexpected in verse 21.

He says, For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Don't miss this.

Jesus is making an unmistakable connection to how we use our money and the kingdom to which our hearts belong.

If you use your money, no matter how much or how little, for your own agendas, for the furthering of your own little kingdom, for your own little kingdom of self, what Jesus is saying here is your heart belongs to the kingdoms of earth.

If, however, you are using your material wealth, however much or however little, for the furthering of the kingdom of God, for his purposes, his will, his plans, and for the care of others who are in the kingdom, what's he saying?

Your heart belongs to the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus then, making this tangible for us, develops this even further in verses 22 and 23.

And he provides a way for us to evaluate where our hearts are in relation to our treasures, in relation to the kingdom of heaven.

And so what he does is he draws on an ancient Near East metaphor.

I'm not going to go into that more specifically, but an ancient Near East metaphor specifically around seeing and vision.

And what he is simply saying here is what you focus on, what you put your sight on, is what you move toward.

Simply he's saying this: your vision reveals your treasure.

And so remember our context here.

Jesus is holding two kingdoms before us, the kingdom of money and the kingdom of heaven.

And what he's saying here is your eye is fixed on one of them.

And if your eye is fixed on one of them, you are either moving to one or to the other.

And so Jesus is revealing that how you use your money ultimately impacts and shapes every aspect of your life.

And so, do you want to know where your heart is in relation to God and the kingdom of heaven?

Jesus is saying, do an honest audit of your life, what you're focusing on, what you're moving toward.

This will tell you all you need to know about your heart's treasures and which kingdom you're fighting for.

Can I make this a bit more practical for us in our Bryanston context this morning?

Just one example among many.

Can I press our coffee culture for a moment?

And before you judge me, this coming from a coffee snob himself.

If you find that you're spending more on coffee in a month, then you are tithing and giving to the kingdom of heaven.

Giving to the needs of the poor, investing for the furthering of the kingdom of heaven.

What is that saying about what you treasure?

Because think about it, friends.

If you're buying a coffee a day, every single day for a month, that 40 Rand a cup, you do the maths.

Now, before you object and say, I'm not a coffee drinker, it doesn't have to be coffee, it can be anything in your life.

Your lifestyle, your status, your entertainment, your comfort.

I don't know about you, but man, Jesus is not holding back punches, and nor should he.

What he is saying here is take a serious look at your life and how you are stewarding what God has given you.

And so, to make this more tangible for you here this morning, instead of waiting for you to hopefully reflect on it this week, I'm going to give you 30 seconds now.

There's going to be a question on screen to begin to reflect on and allow for the Spirit of God to prompt you and provoke you where you're needing to see some things in your life.

And so, what are your actions, habits, pursuits, and anxieties telling you about your view of money and the kingdom of heaven?

Take a moment.

Says the following 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.

Cannot serve God and money.

It is not possible to serve God and money at the same time.

If you love money, you cannot claim to love God.

Do you know what's shocking here?

Jesus takes us even further.

That's what our text is saying.

These two realities are incompatible.

There is no room for exceptionalism here.

No one, no one can serve two masters.

Friends, as one of your pastors who care deeply for your soul, if you think you can this morning, you are self-deceived.

Because the king of the universe says it's not possible.

And so, what we now see here is how we use our treasure is an allegiance issue.

Who do you serve?

To which kingdom do you belong?

Jesus is saying, unless you are prepared to serve him wholeheartedly and yes, daily figure out what that means and what that looks like, particularly here as it pertains to your material resources.

If you're not willing to do that, then you cannot claim to be serving him at all.

Here's why this is shocking.

Here's why this is uncomfortable for us this morning.

Because Jesus is saying how you use your money is a gospel issue.

Because it reveals that if you do not use your money, your material possessions, for the furthering of the kingdom of God, but use it for your own agendas and your own purposes for the furthering your little kingdom of self, what it's saying is that you've not understood the grace of Jesus, who for your sake, though he was rich, became poor, so that you, through his poverty, might become spiritually rich in God.

Christ poured out all that he had for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, and those who follow after him are called to do the same.

Because friends, if the gospel hasn't truly captivated your heart, if it hasn't captivated your wallet.

Jesus or money, friends, who will you serve?

Who will you serve?

Another quick reflection for you.

Take a moment.

What possibly needs to change in your life so that your view and your use of money begin to align with your desire to serve only Jesus?

Take a moment.

Conviction, because the Spirit of God is pressing you on where you're using your treasures and where your heart is in relation to the kingdom.

And, friends, can I pause for a moment?

Don't try and shoe that away because it's uncomfortable and it's weighty.

Sit in it.

Allow for the Spirit of God to prompt and provoke where he needs to.

But if it's not just conviction that you're feeling, but it's anxiety now that's building up because you now need to know what it means now to truly live in the kingdom of heaven.

Because provision matters.

We need to eat.

We need to pay bills.

We need shelter.

We need to look after our families.

And so what is required of us?

What is the king asking of us?

And this is in part why I love my Savior, why I love Jesus.

Because he meets us here and he graciously refocuses our gaze.

And he does that by challenging and refocusing and rebuilding the foundations upon which we understand treasures and what accumulating that looks like.

And so he says in verses 25 to 34, he says, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, or what you will drink.

Look at the birds of the air.

But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown in the oven, how much more will he not clothe you?

For the Gentiles seek after these things, and your heavenly father knows that you need them all.

But seek first the kingdom of God.

Therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow.

What Jesus is graciously showing us in the midst of this anxiety, friends, is the king secures our peace.

The king secures our peace.

He's showing us that we do not yet fully know the character and the nature of the king in whose kingdom we now belong.

Because this king offers us depths of peace to those who are in the kingdom.

And what Jesus does here is remarkable because he doesn't rebuke the anxious heart, he reassures it, he refocuses it, he reassures the heart that genuinely wants to surrender everything to the kingdom of heaven, but is wrestling with the real questions of what this looks like in my life.

And what he does here is he reveals who the king of this kingdom really is.

And he does this by giving us four amazing reassurances from our text that are meant to calm the anxiety that rises when we commit to living open-handed in the kingdom of heaven.

These are the four reassurances.

First one is this.

In verses 26 and 27, Jesus is using an argumentative technique called arguing from the lesser to the greater.

Simply, what that means is if there is something that is true of a lesser case, it must with necessity be also true for the greater case.

In this context, in our text this morning, if the worth and value of birds have been given by God, how much more than humanity?

Notice here, BBC, how the value of birds is not connected to their ability to perform.

They neither sow nor reap nor gather into bonds.

Yet they are fed by God.

What is Jesus saying here?

In the kingdoms of earth, your worth is earned.

It's tied to your productivity, your performance, your ability to provide for yourself.

If you stop producing, your value diminishes.

If you stop accumulating, you stop mattering.

Not so in the kingdom of heaven.

In the kingdom of heaven, your worth is not earned, it's given.

And so when anxiety threatens that you have not done enough to earn, this has no place in the kingdom of heaven.

Because we realize, friends, that our identities, our worth, and our value have already been settled in Christ.

And our performance does not change God's commitment to provide for his people.

The king values you.

Second reassurance.

The king clothes you.

After focusing on the birds of the air, Jesus now draws our attention to the lilies of the field and he contrasts that to King Solomon, the materially richest king in Scripture.

And what Jesus does here is he shows that the provision of man cannot compare to the provision of God.

That God's provision is so much more, so much more abundant compared to the provision that we could ever accumulate for ourselves.

I love verse 30.

It says, But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown in the oven, will he not much more clothe you?

O you of little faith.

In the kingdom of earth, where money is your slave master, provision is based on those who have power and have money.

The more you have, the more you can secure.

The less you have, the more vulnerable you are.

But in the kingdom of heaven, your provision does not rest on your ability, your money, or your power, but on the abundance and the generosity of the king who clothes even the flowers in much splendor.

How much more, BBC.

Will he clothe you?

Because he has already given you everything in Jesus.

So the question is not whether he can provide this morning, but will you trust that he will?

Will you trust that he will?

Third reassurance for you: the king knows you.

Jesus in verses 31 to 33 masterfully reveals that anxieties, or the anxieties rather, that come from trusting in the kingdoms of earth.

In the kingdoms of earth, your needs are your problem.

You alone know them.

You alone feel them.

It's your responsibility to deal with them.

Ultimately, if you do nothing, nothing changes.

You feel them, the weightiness, you have to sort them out.

And so the attempt to achieve some sense of security, some sense of relief from anxiety becomes accumulate more, spend more, need more, accumulate more, spend more, need more.

Do you see the problem that this creates?

Money is a slave master that always promises to satisfy, but will always leave you feeling empty.

Because it knows your anxieties and it never meets them.

It offers nothing but empty promises.

But in the kingdom of heaven, it's not so.

Because what Jesus says here should shatter anxieties hold over your life.

He says the king already knows all of your needs.

All of them.

Before you've even thought of them or needed them, before you've even worried about them, God has an intimate knowledge of what you need.

And what I love here, Jesus does something that catches us off guard.

The response to do not be anxious, do not worry is not, hey, try do these three simple steps or feel something better or just be at peace.

He says, no, seek after the kingdom.

The answer to anxiety in your life, seek first the kingdom of God.

His purposes, his plans.

Make them your total, all-consuming focus and priority.

Why?

Because remember what Jesus said about vision?

What you focus on is what you move toward.

He's saying, fix your eyes on the kingdom of heaven and let God take care of the rest.

For those who set their gaze on the kingdom of heaven, seek first God and everything he prioritizes.

God takes care of them.

He looks after them.

And friends, I love this.

The reason that we're able to fix our eyes on the kingdom of heaven is because we have a king who has freed us.

The king frees you.

Implicit in the call to seek after the kingdom of heaven is the understanding that we now have the choice to be able to do so.

The fact that a choice lies before us, kingdoms of earth or kingdom of heaven, make a choice means that you now have the freedom and the ability to be able to choose.

Because prior to Jesus' death and resurrection on the cross, which we got to celebrate this past Easter, you and I were enslaved, enslaved to the kingdoms of earth, unable to seek after the things of God.

Our minds, our hearts, our wills were darkened and unable to glorify him.

We were consumed by our own kingdoms of self, by our own kingdoms of one, by our own kingdoms of sin.

And we were dead in that kingdom.

And that kingdom wanted to keep us enslaved forever.

But the king doesn't leave us there.

Through his triumphant resurrection from the dead, what he has now done is he has broken, broken the power, the rule, the reign of any other kingdom over our lives.

And he is established in power the kingdom of heaven.

And so now what does that mean?

We are now free to seek after the kingdom of heaven, not through our own power, not through our own will, not through our own ability, but by the triumphant accomplishing work of Christ on the cross, who then places his spirit within us and says, You are free, choose and seek the kingdom daily with everything, including your material possessions.

This, friends, is why Jesus can say with glorious clarity.

Therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow.

The king has freed you from the power, the rule, the reign of any other kingdom, especially in our case this morning, the kingdom of money.

So walk in that freedom.

Live in, fight for this peace, and seek first the kingdom of heaven daily.

One final reflection for you before we pray.

It'll be on screen.

What is the specific anxiety for you this morning about money or provision that is still making it hard to seek his kingdom first?

And what would it look like for you to lay this before the king today?

Take a moment.

Can I encourage you, please?

There is a king who values you, a king who clothes you, a king who knows you, and a king who frees you.

Knowing that, seek first the kingdom of heaven.

One of the ways as a kingdom people that we have the opportunity to celebrate and mark our allegiance in the kingdom of heaven is by partaking in a kingdom meal.

And so we have a moment now, and Mark's going to lead us as a congregation through communion.

May I encourage you, man, press in here.

If you believe that Jesus is Lord over your life, this is a meal that declares the coming of Christ.

The hope that we have as a kingdom people, the joy that is made available to us because of our King, the peace made available to us.

Let me pray for us.

Father, as your people, we're coming before you this morning, understanding the weightiness of this topic, understanding the uncomfortability of talking about money and what that means, and yet this is a grace that your spirit would not leave us to our own devices.

But rather, you would reveal these things to us, areas in our lives where we need to conform to the kingdom of heaven so that we may experience the peace and the joy and the hope and the mercy that has been made available to us by the king of the kingdom, the true kingdom, the only kingdom.

And so this morning, Father, I cannot help but think that there are some people here who feel that they are still ensnared by the kingdom of money.

Would you, by the power of your spirit, begin working in their hearts and lives?

Would you help us to be a people who live with open hands, marked by generosity, recognizing that we have an amazing king who values us, clothes us, knows us, frees us.

We look to you, we need you, and we trust that you are moving in might and in power.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thanks for listening to this sermon from BBC.

If you have questions about what you've heard or would like to find out more about the Christian faith, we'd love to hear from you.

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God bless you.