Sermon 4: "Eternal Investments:Storing up treasures in Heaven"

Abundant Life • Sermon • Submitted 6 months ago • Presented 6 months ago

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Scripture Reference: Matthew 6:19-21 Description: Focusing on the eternal impact of our stewardship choices and the treasures we lay up in heaven.

Notes

Transcript

Good morning everyone…I trust you are all having a blessed day here with your spiritual family. Welcome those of you joining us online as part of our extended spiritual family. Now, is the time we get to let our kiddos go out..but here’s the deal…kiddos, listen up. After church today, whoever can come up to me and let me know what you learned about in Children’s church and what you are thankful for will get a special treat…so go on back to your class with that big smile and be sure to fist bump our safety team on your way out to class this morning. Parent’s I just want to thank you for taking the time to invest in your kids by bringing them to church and giving them the best chance and having their own relationship with the Lord. I just want to commend you to continue to serve your kids well in that way. That is one way you can continue to manage the resources God has put in your care.

Of course that brings us back to where we are today. Today we are finishing up the series called Abundant Life. It’s called that because Jesus came to give us life, and to give us life more abundantly. However, the question is…how do we have that abundant life? So when we are talking about an abundant life, we are specificly looking at stewardship and how to be good stewards. Now in order to make sure we are all on the same page, I gave us a working definition. I said that Stewardship is understanding our role as caretakers of God's blessings.Now listen I want to be very clear here for a moment. You do not have an abundant life simply for giving enough money to the church, or some other para-church ministry. Nope…that’s not how that works, and anyone who says it does, is a liar. I can still hear the words of a man named Robert Tilton when I was a kid telling people on TV that everyone that was struggling financially was struggling because they did not have enough faith. Then he went on to tell people that the best way to prove their faith was to send their funds to him, then God would know that they had enough faith…It makes me so mad to know that people like him still exist today. We talked about that model of false teacher when we looked at false teachers, so that is not the focus of todays message, but its an example of what has happened, and what still is happening. This is pretty much the “christian” version of a Nigerian prince scam.

Anyway, that’s not what we are talking about today. Today we are going to close out our series by looking at another passage in Matthew. Now, we have talked about this concept that we are going to talk about pretty much through this whole series, but I wanted to close this way because I wanted to just really end on the idea of our heart motivations and our focuses with regards to the resources that God has put into our management. You will remember a few weeks ago I mentioned that there was a group of people who came together to pull some resources and pay off a large chunk of debt for the church. I found out a little more about that story. Again, this was before my time, but here is what I found out. There was a group of 5 families that decided together that they wanted to pay off the remaining $40,000 that LRBC owed on the building here. Now…these 5 families may or may not still be a part of LRBC, I am unsure about that…what I do know is that they will never see the full extent of what they sacrificed to make happen all those years ago. You see, when those families pulled their resources to pay off their debt, I can tell you what they were not thinking...”Boy this is gonna be the best investment for us. We will easily make our money back in 12 months and then all profits.” or, “Hey, we will name the lobby after us all.” I know they didn’t have that thought becuase well we don’t have the so-in-so memorial lobby out there, and we don’t send off quarterly shareholder payments to anyone. So, that tells me that those families that joined together to pay off this building, did so to make an eternal impact, not a temporal impact…and that is exactly what we have been talking about over the last few weeks isn’t it. So let’s finish strong by looking together at how to make

Eternal Investments

First of all what is an investment? Well according to Webster, an investment is an outlay of money, usually for income of profit. That makes sense, those of you that have investments for retirement, or for various income streams will understand that in order to make more money, you have to invest more money. I talked about that last week when I talked about working for various owners of properties and that I had to tell some of them that they needed to spend more money. Well, what I didn’t tell you is that there were s couple of owners who were very happy not spending money, and they were terrified because of so much mismanagement that if they spent more money, they would be unable to recoup their investment. Well, those owners had the worst properties and the highest eviction and crime rates because they were not interested in doing things the right way…only the way that looked good in the immediate future. However, sometimes when you invest you don’t get a return on your investment for a very long time…Well…an eternal investment takes a while to realize the fruits of that investment, but it is also far more valuable.

Let me tell you a story about a baseball player from the later 1800’s named Billy Sunday…Billy grew up in an orphanage and practiced and became quite skilled at baseball. He wasn’t an overly impressive hitter with a lifetime batting average of .248. However, he was an excellent runner and a prolific thief… Sunday became the first player to round the bases in 14 seconds. Then throughout his eight-year career, he stole a total of 246 bases. The man could move…Now, Billy was not exactly an upstanding young man. Having grown up in an orphanage and all that entails Sunday’s life was spiraling out of control. In 1886 , while Sunday was living in Chicago, an evangelistic team from the Pacific Garden Mission. This is a group that working as the Gospel rescue mission, think of Rockford Rescue Mission. This is the oldest continuously operating rescue mission and they are still operating today in Chicago. This is an organization that began in 1877. Anyway, Sunday was in Chicago and some folks from the Gospel Rescue Mission found him in the gutter after a pretty big drinking spell and they gave him a Gospel. From that, Billy Sunday responded to that message of Christ in faith. After that conversion both his teammates and his fans saw a remarkable change in the mans behavior as well as habits…he was a changed man because some men found him in a gutter and helped him up and shared the Gospel with him. Those men who help Sunday had no idea what Sunday would go on to do. Sunday resigned his baseball career in 1891 to work as the assistant secretary of the YMCA. of course that was back when the YMCA actually had a Gospel focused mission and wasn’t just a gym. You see, Sunday left the financially lucrative baseball to work for the local YMCA because he was growing in his relationship with the Lord. You see, Sunday didn’t know yet what God was calling him to, but he did know that it wasn’t baseball anymore.

Billy Sunday eventually went on to lead evangelistic revivals much like we think of with Billy Graham, except Sunday was a bit different. You see, Sunday was known as a “rough” speaker; he used unrefined, blunt vocabulary to get his points across. Sunday proclaimed, “I want to preach the gospel so plainly that men can come from the factories and not have to bring a dictionary.” Sunday was an energetic showman with a unique style of preaching. He would act things out, run across the stage, take off his coat and roll up his sleeves, throw chairs at the devil, and in other ways deliver a lively sermon. See Graham was educated, although not the top of the class, Sunday was trained by a Presbyterian pastor and evangelist. Sunday was saved from much and he had much to be thankful to God for and he had a desire to tell as many people as possible about what God had done in him. At his peak Sunday would preach 20 times in a single week…now we have pastors who claim 20 times in a year is too much. Sunday preached nearly 20,000 sermons over his years of ministry averaging 42 per month. In 1935 Sunday had a heart attack after not listening to a dr about slowing down and resting. Later that year he passed away. You see, those men who pulled Sunday from the gutter were investing into eternity. Sunday, with all of his ministry was investing eternally. Sunday had a very rough life, the kind of life many would not wish on their enemy, but he did more to further the Gospel than many others in his time…Why…because he was focused on eternal investments, not on selfish promotion. Sunday was offered movie deals, had a hard time as he declined in popularity with the rise of things like evolution, which he specifically preached against, or prohibition which he was instrumental in getting passed. Actually Sunday said, “Whiskey and beer are all right in their place, but their place is in hell.”..thats the rough speaker that Sunday was…why did he do that? Because he was focused on people being saved from what he had been saved from himself. Sunday’s final sermons was titled, “What must I do to be saved?”…that is an eternal investment if I every heard of one.

Now, let’s go ahead and open up to Matthew 6…I will be quick here, there are really just a few things that I want to talk about this morning as we close out our series...

Matthew 6:19–21 (ESV)

“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.

This is such an important topic to think about…especially after we have been looking at our heart motivations over the last few weeks. I think it’s important to realize that

Earthly treasures are attractive!

Right? I mean, who here would say that Earthy treasures are repulsive. I mean, let’s just be honest…having a car that works well, or a house that doesn’t leak, or checkbook that doesn’t bounce…like these are things that feel really good…they are attractive things for sure, and if you pretend you are above that, well you need to be real. Im not saying your greedy, but Im saying that everyone would love to at least not struggle, right…but…those are the earthy treasures, and we need to remember that Earthy treasures are temporary. Here’s the deal though…when you and I put stuff as the first priority on our lives, then we are saying that we are worshiping stuff and not God. Let me put it this way. Let’s say that you have a guy and this guy has a job that makes him feel good about himself. At this job everyone is nice and he gets paid well for what he does…but he has to be at work all the time. Actually he has to be at work so much that he doesn’t get to see his wife and kids very often, and when he does, he is kind of grumpy because he’s tired. Oh, and by the way, his wife has the resources through her family that they will never not have what they need. That is a promise and it has 100% of the time come through. The family has loved and supported this guy ever since he and his wife got married. What would you say this guy loves more…his feel good job, or his wife and kids? I would argue that he has put his job and his personal desires above that of his wife and kids. In other words…he loves his job more than he loves his family. Now, just for a second…men…do not do this…I’ve done this and I remember working so hard and trying to provide so much for my wife and kids so that they would have so much more than I had growing up and what they missed out on, for many years was me…do not follow my mistake…less money and more family is far better than more money and less family. Thats just a little bonus free advice there…So, when you are thinking about what you love more…is it going to be your earthy treasures…or your eternal investments? Materialism and desiring the latest and greatest is not beneficial to your spiritual health, and your spiritual health is far more important than your physical comfort.

Ok, what else though…what else do we need to think about…I guess we need to answer the question,

What are eternal investments?

Thats a great and hard question I think…se first we do have to be aware of the difference between temporary and eternal investments. I mean from one perspective it’s easy…temporary means not forever and eternal means forever…but it really is more than that because something that is a temporary thing, like this building for instance, is still an eternal investment because of what is happening in this place…So how do we distinguish the two investments. Well…let’s see..I’m goign to give you 4 questions to ask yourself about various things to try and help you distinguish between temporary and eternal, deal…then maybe we will try out a few things and see what you think.

1. Does what I am investing my time and energy in align with God's purpose for my life?

2. Do I view my possessions as tools for God's work, or am I accumulating them for personal satisfaction alone?

3. Are my acts of service motivated by a desire for immediate recognition, or do I seek to make a lasting impact?

4. When faced with choices, do I consider the long-term consequences and how they align with God's will?

So…let’s try out a couple of things....I’ve been using my phone for few months and the newest model just came out…I’m going to go into debt to upgrade my phone to get the newest features now…Eternal or temporal? (Temporal)…yeah…Im not saying its wrong, Im jest saying it is temporary.

What about this, there are some folks from LRBC who would like to go on a mission trip with Dave from ITEC so they are going to raise funds to be able to afford this trip. Temporal or eternal? (Eternal) exactly, they are going to spread the Gospel, so by definition that is eternal....ok, one more

The church is raising funds to be able to renovate the kids classrooms and make them safer and more attractive for younger families? Is this temporal or eternal? (while this may sound a little temporary, this is an eternal investment because we are investing in temporary paint and carpet in order to be able to invest in kids with the Gospel and invest in parents so they know we care about their kids and their kids are safe…that is an eternal investment. Just like those families that gave many years ago to the planting of LRBC back in the 80’s…Those families sacrificed when they bought this piece of property, and they sacrificed when they built the original building and there was sacrifice when this building was rebuilt…all of this was for eternal purposes of spreading the Gospel to Leaf River and beyond...

Now, Im going to close out here in just a minute…there is a bunch more that I wanted to say, but I don’t have the time to talk about everything, so Im just gonna have to save it for another day, but here’s the bottom line. We are called to prioritize heavenly treasures over worldly possessions. In other words…Eternal >(greater than) Temporary. and I want to challenge you to be investing into the eternal things that God is calling you to invest in over the temporary things that you sometimes want to invest in. Why do we do that…because the eternal investments cannot be destroyed, they cannot be stolen, they cannot be altered in any way because those eternal investments are in the hands of God. So let’s look at the

Key to Eternal Investments

How do we go about doing this and changing our hearts and our minds to be focused on eternal and not temporary? Well…its’ what we’ve been talking about through this series…we 1. Must be Faithful Stewards of God’s Resources.The only way to do that is to remember that God owns everything and you own nothing and that you are called to live a lifestyle of generosity and selflessness. and 2. Invest in things that matter to God. So what matters to God? Well, your relationship with him first of all. Your relationship with others. Your willingness to tell others about Christ and to use your skills and abilities to bless others. Also, financially support ministries that are actively promoting the Gospel. In other words, Invest in things that matter to God. We have missionaries that have all been vetted by our Elders as solid ministries that are advancing the Gospel. If God is leading you to live generously and to give more than your tithe, choose one (or more) of these ministries and give towards that cause. Partner with our mission partners personally and make a commitment to help them…or maybe there is another mission partner than you feel compelled by that you desire to bless financially or even with your time and abilities. Listen, your church is your spiritual home and where you should tithe…but your offerings should go far and wide from there. Are you willing to support ministries that are advancing God’s kingdom?

Finally....how do you do it…well I gave you some questions to think about things earlier. Now I would to say just 2 more, hopefully, practical thoughts about stewarding God’s resources well. Practically speaking, what do you do....

1. Prioritize you time, talents, and resources for eternal purposes. ..put God’s purposes about your purposes.

2. Seek God’s guidance in discerning where to invest. in other words…pray about it and ask others for wisdom if you are unclear.

Finally, this week I am announcing a new fundraising initiative here at LRBC for the last few weeks of the year. One of the goals for 2023 was to put another $5,000 in the capital expenses fund to be able to make repairs that are coming up here pretty soon. See, we would much rather not have to go into any kind of debt, and so that means we would rather pay cash for these repairs as they come up. Specifically we have HVAC systems that have already exceeded their natural lifespan. However, God is keeping them running…but we want to be prepared for when God allows those to be removed. Those units will cost more than $10,000 each, and we have 6 off those units, not to mention other various issues that come up from time to time. So, we had a goal of adding $5,000 to our capital expense fund, and we have only been able to add $1000 so far this year…so we are brining it to everyone here. Would you be able to give $20, $100, $1000, whatever to this fund. This would be above and beyond your normal giving, and I am not asking anyone to go into debt to give to this, because that is not pleasing to the Lord either…but if God has blessed you with a little extra, are you able to bless the church with a little extra in order to finish the year strong financially. Listen, we have a goal of $4000 to be raised by December 31st. However, if God gives more, or less we are convinced that God is in control of that and we are excited to see what God will do as we focus on him.

Remember as we leave out this morning and head into Sunday School. Let me challenge you to live with an eternal perspective, investing in things that have lasting value, and a lasting impact, not on things that only have an impact today...

Let’s pray… (pray for wisdom in determining what is eternal and what is temporary)

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