Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

The story of the man’s lost bitcoin wallet.

He searched for 8 years in a garbage dump to find the $350 Million he had thrown away on a hard drive during spring cleaning.

How many will have an even greater feeling of loss when they realize they threw away eternal, heavenly riches for foolish, earthly ones?

Temporary Treasures on Earth

Jesus’ instruction to us in this text comes in two parts, first a negative command followed by a positive one.

Both commands have to do with ‘treasures’ and where you are to place them.

The idea is not about the location, however, but the nature of those treasures.

That is, it’s not like you have money here that you can somehow invest in heaven, but the kind of treasures that we are to accumulate for ourselves are heavenly ones, not earthly ones, and thus they are kept in a heavenly location.

The text ends with a statement about the heart: where we have treasures is where we will have our heart set.

Treasures are simply things that you place value in.

The command is not to forgo treasures altogether, but to invest them wisely in an eternal sense.

In this life we are given resources and abilities that we can either use to store us treasures here for immediate, temporary enjoyment or to store up treasures for eternal enjoyment.

A Command Implying Contentment in This World

Jesus’ instruction to us here introduces us to the biblical teaching of contentment.

Contentment has become a bit of a taboo word in our world today as the American dream and consumerist values have not only become central in the culture around us, but have also infiltrated the church.

A local church can become so interested in the growth of numbers, budget, programs, and other outward displays of success that the view of church growth and health has essentially become worldly.

In our own lives, getting the best career, highest pay, best benefits, biggest house, most exotic vacations, and best performing children has blinded many from the biblical ideal of contentment.

John defines worldliness as lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and pride in possessions (1 John 2:16-17).

Interestingly, the first two of those areas have to do with lust, or unrighteous desires.

Worldliness is motivated by desires triggered by what we see or what we feel that are wrong or idolatrous.

The final area has to do with pride in what you have.

In other words, worldliness can be defined as wanting more than what you have and being sinfully proud of what you do have.

So we see that worldliness is the opposite of contentment.

Value

According to Christ, in our text, worldliness can be viewed as storing up treasures here in this world.

What Jesus is pointing at here is not the number in your bank account or the size of your home, but rather where your intentions and actions show you place value.

The principle is best illustrated in Christ’s own parable of the pearl.

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.

(Matt 13:45-46)

The difference between the contented person and the worldly person is what kind of peals do they find valuable.

There is a certain avarice in a godly person, but it is a greed for gain of another kind which we will get into in a bit.

The worldly person, however, looks at that heavenly pearl, looks at the pearls of worldly gain and pleasure, and judges the latter to be worth more than the former.

How many times has a priceless artifact worth millions been sold for pocket change at a garage sale simply because the owner did not recognize the value of what they had.

So it is that those who pursue worldly gain, their problem is not that they are pursuing gain, but that the gain they are pursuing is severely overvalued.

They, like the man who built his house on the sand, do not listen to God’s judgement of the value of worldly things and invest in it anyway.

People will listen to Warren Buffet and other millionares when investing in stock, but will not listen to the creator of all material things.

Jesus then gives us a logical reason why we should not invest in this world, it’s pleasures, gains, and promised returns.

He points us to the fact that all worldly things end.

The person who puts their hope in the joys that this life can promise would do well to read the book of Ecclesiastes carefully.

but on the contrary, the Teacher says,

Think of one thing that you can pursue in this life that lasts.

You want to pursue money?

How unfulfilling and unstable it is, able to fly away with the simple announcement from your doctor that you are going to die of cancer.

Sex?

Both the desire and ability to please yourself sexually fades with time.

Status?

Again, unstable and unrewarding, a slave master to all how serve it.

Food and drink?

As soon as your swallow it is gone and forgotten.

Wisdom and knowledge?

The great philosopher Niche died a mad man.

Vacations?

Create memories that will only depress you with longing for more until you are spent and find no joy in the adventure anymore.

Drugs and alcohol?

The intensity of that pleasure only shortens the life you could enjoy them with.

Career?

You will retire and loose all you worked for.

Health?

You have little control over it.

Truly, all these things disappear as quickly as a cloud of breath does on a cold day.

This clear logic is what Jesus is referring to by moth, rust, and thieves.

Whatever you obtain in this world, someone or something will take it from you, be it a robbery, an accident, or simply the slow decay of time.

Death, in the end, has the final say and ends all worldly gain.

The Apostle James says

The Dangers of Worldly Gain

But more than this, there is great danger in pursuing good things in this world.

Over and over again the NT warns us against the deceitfulness of riches and how easily they can take from us what is truly valuable.

Let us look at a few examples:

How foolish it is to lay up treasures in the last days.

Not only will they eventually rot, but they will depreciate very quickly very soon.

The end of this world is near, the beginning of the next is at hand, how miserable those Christians will be who, though they may achieve eternal life by faith in Christ, they will see the waste of many hours of effort on things that spoiled in the end.

So not only do the treasures of this world rot quickly, they are also dangerous to our soul.

This does not mean that there are no rich Christians or that a Christian cannot serve God with great wealth, but it is saying that wealth is not something any Christian should want.

Those who have it should see it as a massive responsibility, not a privilege, as if those riches were for their own consumption.

Thomas Watson writes,

“remember that these outward comforts cannot make you blessed.

You might live rich and die cursed.

You might treasure up an estate, and God might treasure up wrath.

Be not perplexed (or don’t be concerned) about those things the lack of which cannot make you miserable, nor the enjoyment make you blessed” in other words, don’t be upset when you miss out on what cannot actually make you happy.

I am not ignorant to the time of hyperinflation in which we live.

I know many of you are likely concerned about how you may be able to afford living in the future.

Jesus teaching on contentment can put us at ease in these things.

If we lack food, we may feast on his word.

If we lack housing, we may take refuge in his name.

We will look later at how God takes care of your earthly needs just as he does for the birds of the air, but for now let us focus on where true blessings lie: in heaven.

For it is much better that you should lack the necessities in this life and have an abundance of riches in the next than if the opposite were true.

Better to be a beggar who is set to inherit a Kingdom than a CEO billionaire whose riches will give him no comfort beyond this short, uncertain life.

Eternal Treasures in Heaven

Now when we talk about blessings in heaven, this can seem very immaterial and vague.

What does it mean to have treasures in heaven?

First, let us consider what it means to have treasures in heaven, then we will look at the nature of those treasures.

While heaven is a specific location, it is not the location that is important but rather what is heaven that makes it so special a place to invest ourselves in.

In short, heaven is the dwelling place of God.

Deut 26:15

The NT puts the land of milk and honey and God’s holy habitation together.

While the Israelite were looking forward to an earthly country, that was not the focus of Abraham’s faith, Hebrews 11:10

When God gave his promise of blessing to Jacob, he showed him a ladder leading to heaven in Genesis 28:12.

This shows us that it was always God’s intention that the promises made to God’s people were meant to open a way into his presence.

When Paul talks about worldly riches to Timothy, and the pursuit of those riches, he says,