The Counterculture Christ Part 4 - Archie Callahan

I want you to take out your bibles today and i want you to turn to matthew chapter 6 i want to look at verse 19 through 24 and 33 we're going to continue the series called the counterculture christ and today we're going to talk about the secret of peace the secret of peace what you treasure determines your peace

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

I'm going to say that one more time.

What you treasure determines your peace.

In our world today, there are a lot of treasure hunters.

They're hunting for treasure in the deepest part of the oceans, off our coast, the coast of North Carolina, the coast of Florida, where many treasures were found that came from previous shipwrecks in the ocean.

There are people that walk up and down the beach with metal detectors that will cross over people that are lying in the sand trying to get a suntan, trying to find quarters, nickels, dimes, and four-carat rings.

People have this knack of searching for treasures.

They spend their time, their energy, their resources looking for treasures and

To enrich themselves, not understanding that earthly treasures will never satisfy the deepest desires of their hearts.

See, money can make your life more comfortable, but it will not make your heart whole.

There's nothing sinful about money.

Money is a moral meaning that it has no morality.

It begins to take on the morality of the person who possesses it.

Jack Whitaker, West Virginian, woke up in 2002 on Christmas morning to discover that he had won the lottery.

$315 million, the largest lottery up to that point.

He was the sole winner of $315 million on Christmas morning.

I don't know about you, but that would be a pretty good Christmas morning.

That morning he was probably rejoicing.

$315 million.

He told a news agency when he discovered that he won the $315 million, he got sick to his stomach.

He had found the treasure that people dreamed about.

He had won the lottery, but within five years his wife divorced him.

His granddaughter that he was going to leave an inheritance to ended up dying because she had abused drugs.

And NBC News said this about Jack.

He won the jackpot, but it ruined his life.

Every week, millions of people stop at gas stations and buy a ticket, hoping to discover a dream, a fortune, win the lottery, to make their life more pleasurable, more comfortable, more satisfying.

They just don't understand, most people don't understand that money has no ability to bring inward satisfaction.

It has no ability to bring you a soul that is healthy.

Money might make you comfortable, but it will not make you healthy.

Because money takes on the morality of the person who possesses it.

So in Matthew chapter number 6, we began this series several weeks ago.

It's talking about the Sermon on the Mount.

The Sermon on the Mount has been called the Constitution of the Kingdom.

The Magna Carta of the Kingdom.

The manifesto of the king, the charter of Christian living.

It is the principle, foundational understanding of God's kingdom and why Jesus came.

He came to a world that was ruled by the Romans politically, but it was influenced by the Greeks through the art.

through literature and through all those temples and paganisms that they instituted into the culture.

So Jesus came to a culture that was Greek and Roman.

It was the Greco-Roman culture of his day where these two cultures merged into a powerhouse society and

And if you're really going to understand the whole of the New Testament, you've got to understand the culture in which the people that wrote the New Testament lived in.

They lived in this Roman-dominated world.

The Romans dominated it.

Law, they dominated it.

governance.

They dominated engineering.

The Greeks were about literature.

They were about the arts.

They were about the temples.

And so Jesus came into this world and began to give them a new foundation of living.

He began to give them an understanding from a kingdom that was not of this world.

See, the Romans and the Greeks, man, they thought that the gods favored you if you were rich, if you were wealthy, if you had a nice house, if you had a nice chariot, if you had slaves.

You were favored by the gods.

But Jesus comes and he begins to speak in a society as he preaches the Sermon on the Mount and he flips the understanding of what it means to be favored by God upside down.

He becomes a counterculture person in a world that is morally bankrupt.

In a world that is twisted.

He comes into a society.

And there at the Sermon on the Mount.

As he's preaching.

He is preaching to Galileans.

He's preaching to everyday people.

He is preaching to people.

That make a day's wage.

They're day laborers.

They're farmers.

They're fishermen.

They're blue collar people.

They're everyday salt of the earth people.

And he begins to talk to them.

In a way that they understand.

They had never heard anyone taught before.

He is bringing out points that they never heard in their culture because culture was driving them to be more successful, to get more money, to get more wealth, to get more houses, bigger and better, faster, more cars, more chariots, more horses, more slaves.

You just had to have more.

And Jesus comes in and he begins to flip all that upside down.

So you've got to understand, these people were poor.

They met a day's wage.

A day's wage in that day, according to Matthew 20 verse 2, it was a denarius.

Matthew 20:2

A denarius was a silver coin.

It was what we would call today minimum wage.

They would work one day and that one wage for that day would sustain them for that day.

It wasn't enough to live on for tomorrow.

They were day laborers.

Jesus comes into that culture and begins to teach them.

About possessions.

He begins to teach them.

About kingdom culture.

He begins to teach them about the foundation.

Of his way of living.

And he says this in verse 19.

Do not store up for yourselves.

Treasures on earth.

where moths and vermin destroy and where thieves break in and steal.

But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven where moths and vermin do not destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal.

For where your treasure is, there your heart is also.

The eye is the lamp of the body.

If your eyes are healthy, this is kind of weird.

He goes from treasure to talking about people's eyes.

It's like, I wonder if the Galileans that were there listening to him, the day laborers were following him.

He was teaching.

They were probably, what in the world?

The eye is the lamp of the body.

And if the eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light.

But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness.

If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness?

And they're probably, what is this guy talking about?

No one can serve two masters.

Either you hate the one or love the other or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other.

You cannot serve both God and money.

One amen.

Very loud one.

Matthew 6.33, he says, but seek first the kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you or given to you as well.

It will be given to you as well.

Jesus isn't just telling us to get our treasure right.

He is telling us something about the human heart.

It follows whatever it values most.

I'm going to say that one more time.

Jesus is not just instructing people on their treasure.

He's actually exposing their heart and teaching them their heart always follows what they treasure.

If you really want to know what you treasure, look at your bank statement.

Look at your cash app, Venmo account.

Because your heart always follows what you treasure most in life.

So as we look at this passage today, there are three things that I believe that Jesus is teaching us.

Number one, your treasure reveals your true master.

Jesus said, where your treasure is, there your heart is also.

Verse 19 and 20 says, do not store up for yourselves, underline yourselves there, treasures on earth where moth and vermin destroy, where thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven where moth and vermin do not destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal.

David Guzik, who wrote a great commentary on the book of Matthew, says this.

The more literal translation of this is do not treasure for yourselves treasures on earth.

Don't make the treasures of this earth your treasure.

Do not make that your sole aspiration in life.

Why?

Because earthly treasures are temporary and they decay and they fall away.

Look what he says here.

The master doesn't say having a treasure is wrong.

He doesn't say money is evil.

In fact, Paul said the love of money is evil.

Money is amoral.

It has no morality.

But Jesus doesn't say it's wrong to have treasure.

What he is saying is this.

It's wrong to lay it up for yourself.

Pastor, you mean I can't have a 403B or a 401K or a Roth IRA?

You mean I can't have a stock portfolio?

That's not what he's saying.

He's saying if you have all those things and you're using all those things for self, that's where the trouble is.

You don't lay it up for yourself.

You lay it up with the idea that God has given me this as a steward and a manager of the blessings that he gave me.

So if he says, I want you to give a single parent mom some help this month, you can help a single parent mom.

If he says, I want you to help a missionary, you can help a missionary.

It's not about self-preservation.

It's not about self-indulgence.

The Bible teaches nothing about self-help.

It teaches nothing about self-care.

It teaches nothing about I've got a day for myself.

The Bible is nothing about self.

In fact, the whole Bible is trying to get you out of self.

Come on.

You have not heard many preachers say that.

Because it doesn't sell.

No.

There are self-help books all across America that are selling billions every year.

The greatest way to get happy and the greatest way to receive joy is to get out of yourself and put your gaze on other things.

That are not temporary.

Notice what he says.

He says, don't store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy.

Why would he use moth and rust?

The reason he uses moth there is because in the ancient world, fine clothes were desirable.

They were treasures.

And do you know what a moth will do to some fine clothing?

He will eat it.

You go in your closet, you hang a fun linen robe and you walk out.

You come back a week later and all you have is a collar.

That's what he's saying.

He says, don't store it up that way.

Vermin, rats will eat your fine linen clothes.

Don't store up treasures on earth.

He says, and then rust will come.

Did you know metal in the ancient world was a treasure?

There was not a lot of metal and they treasured metal and metal had the capacity to rust and corrode and decay and it would be gone.

Grain was a treasure and grain could rust

could just decay and be gone he says don't put all your hope and your fine clothes your grain and your metal because it could be all gone

On top of that, there are thieves in society.

They will come in and steal what you possess.

He says they break in.

A more literal translation means they dig through because they live in clay huts or clay houses and people could dig through the clay and rob you of your goods.

So he's saying thieves will come in if you try to store it up.

Don't do that.

And then he gives the contrast of storing treasures.

He says, if you're going to store treasures, store your treasures in heaven.

And when you store your treasures in heaven, it's eternal.

It lasts.

It will not decay.

It's forever.

It's protected from decay and thievery.

How do we store up treasures in heaven?

We store up treasures in heaven by using our earthly treasures to help other people and to expand the kingdom of God.

That's how we store up

treasures in heaven.

Did you know that heaven has a reward system?

That when we get to heaven, Christians are going to be judged on their works, not their works for salvation, but the works that flowed out of their salvation.

So one day I'm going to be rewarded for the good that I did on earth and the things that were not

They're going to be wood, hay, and stubble, and they're going to burn up, but the things that were eternal are going to last forever, and I'll get rewards, not so I can just chant a good chant and be full of pride, but so that I could lay them at the feet of Jesus in honor of him who gave me salvation and purchased my salvation through his very blood.

Can I tell you this?

You've never seen a U-Haul following a hearse.

you.

Nobody pulls into a cemetery with a moving truck behind them full of flat-screen televisions, shoes, valuables.

Boys, I'm gonna take it with me.

When I die, load up my truck, meet me at the cemetery.

See, pharaohs thought that.

The ancient Egyptians believed that they carried their possessions into the afterlife.

That's why when we dig up tombs of pharaohs, there's gold, there's grain,

There's chariots.

There's fine linen and clothing.

Because they thought when they died, when they died and entombed them, that they would take all their possessions into the afterlife.

I wonder what Pharaoh felt like when he entered into the afterlife and nothing followed him.

Dog, where is my stuff?

Where's my cherry?

Where's my gold?

Where's my gold helmet at?

Where's my gold rod, my staff?

Where is all my stuff?

Where's my grain?

What am I going to eat?

He went into the afterlife and he found nothing.

And now we dig up tombs and we find the gold.

We find all the valuables and we put them in museums and people look at it.

Folks, you cannot carry your shoe collection with you.

You came into this world barefooted.

And you will go out of this world with shoes that will decay or be burned up when you leave this life.

You cannot take anything with you.

Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Whatever you treasure, you will pursue, you will prioritize, and you will preserve.

Can I ask you this?

What are you treasuring today?

Whatever you're treasuring, you're ultimately going to pursue.

you're ultimately gonna prioritize and you will preserve it.

Can I tell you today, if you value the kingdom of God, you value the king, you're gonna pursue him.

You're going to prioritize him.

And you're going to preserve that relationship with him.

You're going to make it a priority in your life.

The things of the kingdom.

If you value that, guess what?

Your money will follow.

Come on, your money will be put into the kingdom of God.

If I value church and I say I value it, I'm going to put my finances there.

I'm going to put my ability to serve there.

I'm going to pursue the kingdom of God.

I am going to prioritize church attendance.

I am going to preserve what I can for the next generation.

How many of you know Christianity is just one generation away from extinction?

So I got to preserve it.

How do I preserve it?

By putting God first in front of my kids at home and not just on Sunday morning.

I make it something that I'm going to pursue.

I make it a priority in my life.

Guess what?

Church attendance should not be an afterthought.

It should not, well, if I got something better to do, I'm going to do that.

Well, if it's sunshine, I'm going to go out to Pungo and get to the farms and bring my kids.

No, church should be a priority.

Because it's God's number one means of, guess what, advancing his kingdom in the earth.

So if I say my heart's here, my treasure's not here, I'm deceived.

Man, I'm preaching good.

It's just like some of you are like, where did I go?

You're in church.

Say, what's the treasure?

It's whatever you put your money, time, and energy and hope into.

The heart here in the Hebrew thinking is not the organ that's beating.

It's all of you.

It's the center of the whole person.

The Hebrews understood that.

It's including your mind, your will, your desires, your loyalties.

It's more than your feelings.

It's who you are as a person.

Here's the point.

Your heart doesn't just lead you to your treasure.

It follows your treasure.

What you invest in, you will become attached to.

So if I put my treasure somewhere, guess what?

My heart is going to follow that.

That's the very reason many of us check our bank accounts at least once a week.

Some of our hearts are attached to Bank of America, Fulton Bank, Navy Fed.

And if one dime's missing, we get on the phone, we fuss him out.

Hey, you took me for a dime.

Say, Pastor, how do I get my life attached to what God's attached to?

You begin to put your time, your energy, your resources there, and your heart will follow that.

Your heart will follow that.

You begin to say, hey, I'm going to serve in God's house because that's where my heart is.

That's where my treasure is.

I'm going to serve here.

I'm going to dedicate my life to helping Jesus build his church in the earth.

Number two, a divided treasure always produces anxiety.

No one can serve two masters.

Either you will hate the one and love the other or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other.

You cannot serve both God and what?

Money.

Can I ask you this?

Who's your God?

Who's your God?

Is it your possessions or is it God?

You cannot serve both God and money.

A divided allegiance will always produce discontentment and anxiety in our lives.

It robs us of peace.

Jesus said you cannot serve two masters.

And then he goes on to talk about the eyes.

He says the eye is the lamp of the body.

If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light.

But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness.

If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness?

He is contrasting the healthy eye and the unhealthy eye.

The healthy eye has the right direction.

What is that direction?

It's upward.

It's heavenward.

It's in the things of God.

It has the right direction.

The healthy eye is generous.

It's giving.

It's single-minded.

That's what the healthy eye represents.

It represents a generosity.

So within the context of this, he is saying, don't be greedy.

Don't store up for yourselves treasures on earth.

If you're that,

You don't have a healthy eye.

And we want to be people with a healthy eye, a healthy vision, a healthy outlook, a healthy understanding of the things.

King David said, Lord, give me an undivided heart.

And healthy eyes directed heavenward toward the things of God, the things that are eternal, the things that are lasting.

He says, you need a healthy eye.

When you have your eye in the right direction, light will fill your life.

The light of God's countenance, the light of his love, the light of his joy, the light of his peace, the light of his pleasure, it will all fill your life when you put your eye in the right direction.

And then he says there's the unhealthy eye.

The unhealthy eye is stingy.

If you want to make your world small, be stingy.

If you want to have a small world, be greedy.

That's about as big.

You're living in the largest possible formation of your world if you're constantly being greedy.

Your world will get no bigger.

He says an unhealthy eye is stingy, greedy, and double-minded.

James the half-brother of Jesus said it this way.

Man, I'm glad I wasn't Jesus' brother.

Can you imagine being James and his mama saying, James, why can't you act like Jesus?

That's a tough comparison.

But he said this, a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.

An unhealthy eye is double-minded man.

It's directed toward earthly things.

It's constantly saying, I need more.

And if I get this, I'm going to be satisfied.

Only to discover when you get the new Tesla and you get the second payment, you become dissatisfied.

A new car is great until the payment comes.

I'm like, this is not as great as I thought it was going to be.

I'd rather have that $1,200 back a month.

I can remember, I'm old enough to remember when 300 was a high car payment.

And now we got car payments two times as much as what I used to pay for rent on a two-bedroom, two-bath apartment.

Yeah, crazy, isn't it?

So when I have an unhealthy eye, I think all these things, man.

I begin to compare myself to other people and I get what the ancient people called an evil eye.

An evil eye was a phrase used among ancient Jews to denote an envious eye.

Man or a man with an envious disposition.

A man who coveted his neighbor's prosperity.

Who loved his own money and treasures more than he loved anything in the world.

And would give nothing for the furtherance of God's kingdom.

Jesus, he compares the healthy eye to the unhealthy eye.

He says, if you've got a healthy eye, man, great is the light in you.

But if you have an unhealthy eye, man, darkness fuels your life.

And how great is that darkness?

I believe sometimes we can't break out into revival, personal revival, church revival, national revival, is because we have become so earthly minded

Jack Hayford, a great preacher of a past generation, once said, wherever there is hilarious giving and generosity, revival soon follows.

Man, if you want to open yourself up and if you want your world to be big, man, get your eye healthy.

Be generous.

Water other people.

I mean, you know, sometimes we want to be watered and we want to be pampered and sometimes we want people to feed us grapes and chips and dip.

But we never think about watering somebody else's life.

Enriching somebody else's life.

Making somebody else's life better.

Increasing somebody else.

We're always thinking about ourselves.

Can I tell you that is the smallest way to live.

To live a stingy life.

Number three Jesus teaches us in this passage.

sermon at this point.

The right treasure sought first produces peace.

The right treasure sought first produces what?

Peace.

Could it be that some of our unrest and discontentment is because we're pursuing and running after and prioritizing and trying to preserve the wrong treasure?

Paul comes in, in Philippians, he says, be anxious for nothing, but in everything, with prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God, and the peace of God that transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Paul was teaching us we don't have to be anxious if we keep our mind on the right treasure, if we focus in on the right treasure.

Because the right treasure sought first produces peace.

So Jesus in this teaching, he's a masterful teacher.

Jesus was a masterful preacher.

He tells this people in this culture that's very materialistic, earthly minded, status driven.

Look at what I have.

He tells these people, these Galileans, don't.

Look what he tells them not to worry about.

Don't worry about what you will eat, what you will wear.

Don't worry about shelter.

Don't worry about those things.

If your father in heaven feeds the sparrows of the air and clothes the lilies of the field, how much more

Will he care for you?

Don't worry about gas prices.

If Jesus was here, he said, don't worry about your rent payment.

Don't worry how high stake has gotten

If I've taken care of the birds of the air and I've clothed the lilies of the field, how much more will I care for you?

Don't worry.

But we live in a world that's just so full of anxiety and a nation that is so blessed and a nation that far exceeds every nation in the world with material wealth and material blessings and homes and cars

We buy cars.

We have multiple cars.

We buy phones that cost $1,200.

We buy watches that cost $350.

We buy shoes that can go as high as $500 to $1,000.

We've been so blessed, but we're so worried.

We're so anxious.

You are a one percenter.

When it comes to wealth and world standards, you are a one percenter.

Why are you worried?

The American Psychiatric Association in 2026 put out a poll about worry and it says this right here.

48% say they are more anxious than a year ago.

Up from 43% in 2025.

Man, it's going up.

71% are anxious about the economy.

You know why they're anxious about the economy?

They're anxious about losing what they already have.

What Jesus said, if you try to preserve your life, you will lose it.

62% worry about current events.

Antichrist is coming.

See what's going on in the Middle East?

And 62% worry about paying bills.

Maybe that 62%, go back.

Maybe that 62% has not budgeted right and are living beyond their means.

How many sometimes the anxiety is self-inflicted because you're trying to keep up with people that live beside you who don't care about you.

God has given me everything I need for godliness in Christ Jesus.

The very money he's given me, he knows that's all I can handle, and if I manage it well, he increases me more.

Read Matthew 25, the parable of the talents.

If I want more, I've got to learn to manage what I have in a way that pleases God, and he increases me.

So some of our worry is self-inflicted.

We buy a car with a $1,200 payment, and we know we can only afford $300,000.

Got quiet in this gospel church.

Keep going, you can go now.

60% worry about keeping their family safe.

How many of you know security and safety is an illusion?

There is no safety.

Politicians promise it, but the only safe place is Christ.

55% worry about their health.

Oh, I wanna live forever.

It's not gonna happen.

Folks, 100 out of every 100 people die.

You're not escaping the plant.

You're not going to be the exception.

I just wanted to cheer you up.

53% worry about emerging technology like AI.

Up from 44% in 2020.

Robots are going to take over.

17% have used an AI chat bot to talk about their own mental health.

We are so worried.

We are so worried.

And Jesus tells us how to nip it in the bud, how to cut its head off, how to get rid of worry.

Here it is, one verse.

Matthew 6, 33.

Seek first his kingdom and righteousness and all these things you have need of will be added to your life as well.

It's the principle of priority.

It's the principle of putting him first.

I don't chase money.

Never have, never will.

But somehow God blesses

Because I understand I might have money today, but it could be gone tomorrow.

Might have a home today.

Think it burned down by tomorrow.

Pray it doesn't.

But if it does, I'm not going to lose my trust in God.

Job said, the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.

Blessed be the name of the Lord.

God is sovereign, folks.

I put my trust in him.

I want you to stay.

Again, the right treasure sought first produces peace.

Jesus said this.

I'm going to read this verse and we're going to close.

He said, come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy, my burden's light.

John and Charles Wesley, several generations ago, preached the gospel.

They were reformers.

They said, in these verses, you see two rests.

The first rest comes at conversion.

Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden.

That means your sin has overwhelmed you and you know, man, without Jesus, you're doomed.

You come and you're converted.

You've received the free gift of salvation.

You're justified by faith.

Second rest comes out of this.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and lowly in heart.

The second rest comes from your understanding and knowledge of who God is.

And look here, and he said, you will find rest for your weary souls.

You can be saved and still be weary because you have not come into discipleship.

You have not walked with Jesus.

You have not been discipled.

Yeah, you're going to heaven.

Man, you're going to show up there one day, but you're going to show up there stressed out.

And you don't have to.

He says, if you'll walk with me and learn my rhythm.

Learn the rhythms of my grace.

I'll teach you how to let go of the baggage, how to let go of the materialism, how to let go of me, how to let go of self, how to let go of anxiety, how to let go of worry, how to let go of stress, how to let go of keeping up with the Joneses and just live in the rhythm of grace that I have given you.

You don't have to fret.

You can have your soul refreshed by my presence.

Come to me.