Consider the Lilies

Man, as we come to this part of the service, if this is your first time with us, then I want to invite you to do something that you may have never done before. We have a portion of every Sunday morning where we just pray. We pray as a church. We take our needs to God. We take our hopes and our desires to Him. So, if you—if this is your first time with us, then this might be a little surprising. Lindsay is not our every-week worship leader. We have volunteers that have been leading for us over the past couple months. So, we are praying that God will provide a week-to-week permanent worship leader, choir director, musical czar, whatever we want to call this person. So what I want to invite you to do is just to grab a neighbor and pray that God would provide that person for us. We know that every time there’s a need we go through and it’s something that God’s going to want to provide for, that means God’s already at work calling that person. So, we’re going to trust Him with this. So you just grab a neighbor and pray for a moment that God would provide our new worship choir director person. You take it away.

Holy Spirit, Spirit, thank You so much for today. Lord, I’d love to just take a moment and pause and listen to my brothers and my sisters pray. God, when we really see who You are, how could we not pray? The sovereign King of the universe who is also the Heavenly Father that loves to stoop down and pick us up and just kind of cradle us. The One who is guiding and directing all things for Your own glory, but who is also intimately and so passionately intertwined in our day-to-day lives. The One who, as we’re going to see, has abundance far beyond all that we could ever ask or imagine and wants to shower us with that. God, why would we not pray? Why do we not take our needs and our cares and our wants and our fears to You? So Lord, we—we bring this need to You, God. We—we need You to show us who our next worship choir director, leader is. We need You, God. We need You to make that abundantly clear to our church. We need You to make it clear to that person. We need You to help us rally behind them and commission them for that task, to set them apart for it. We need that, Lord. So please do it. God, we also need You right now to take Your Word and to do something with it in our lives. God, I need You to deliver a better sermon than the one that I’m going to say. I need You to take this Word and plant it in the hearts of all of us, God. Me included. I don’t think I’ve arrived when it comes to living generously. I don’t think that I’ve got this all figured out. I certainly see my idols and my desires, God, bumped up and rubbed up against with this, Lord. I just—I need You to fix and change me. We need You to fix and change us, God. Do something this morning. Thank You, Holy Spirit, for listening to us. Thank You for guiding us and being here and being present with us right now. We love You. Amen.

You know, we—we live in a—a pretty unique place, you know, a place where what we are doing right now is not—I don’t like—I don’t love the word “protected by,” but I would say supported by our government. And a lot of—a lot of that support comes from the sacrifices of people, particularly our veterans. So, thank you so much for that. I also want to acknowledge the guests in the room. I’m not going to make you stand up, okay? Don’t worry, that’s not this kind of church. We’re fine. Right now we are in a series addressing money. I make no apology for that. As a church we need to address the deepest issues of discipleship. If talking about money in a local church is weird for you, we don’t do this all the time. We’re doing this for a month right now. But we do this because we know that where our money goes there our hearts will go also. Jesus directly said that where your treasure goes there your heart will be also. So, that’s where we’re at right now. That you have not been brought or invited or coerced here so that you would give us your credit card information. That’s not what this is about. So, I would go ahead and invite everybody though to turn to Matthew chapter 6 verses 19 through 34. Matthew chapter 6.

A few years ago, Becca and I were helping my mom work through a financial situation with her house back in Colombia. This was a situation that put incredible stress on us. It brought up, most importantly, it brought up some things in me that I didn’t expect to find. Questions about money and security, responsibility, the future, tons of stuff that I thought that I had surrendered to God already, that I had made it past in my journey in discipleship until the pressure of life kind of sat on me and it kind of forced some of this stuff out.

That’s why Matthew chapter 6 matters, the passage we’re going to read this morning. You see, it’s not just because Jesus talks about money that we need to talk about it. It’s not just because our church needs to talk about money that I’m going to talk about it. It’s because Jesus is after your heart. And money and how you use it is one of the clearest indicators of what you trust in.

A few years ago when we were walking through this financial situation with my mom, I thought that I had made it past this place of trusting in money for my security and my joy, my satisfaction. And that situation helped me see that I had not—I hadn’t graduated. I hadn’t arrived at some deeper place of spirituality.

This morning, as I’m going to be preaching through this passage, I want to invite you to be kind of open-handed with this and to consider whether or not you also may not have graduated. Maybe you’re in a place that I’m still in honestly as I continue to work through this.

Last week, I began this generosity series with this main thrust that love fuels generosity. You see, it’s God’s love for us that fuels our love for God and for others. God has totally loved us and He has sacrificially loved us. And because of that, we can totally love God and sacrificially love others as well. This morning, we’re going to look a little deeper at it.

In Matthew chapter 6 verses 19-34, Jesus is going to address two groups of people. He’s going to address the wealthy and the worried. He’s going to look at the wealthy people and He’s going to look at worried people because both groups need the same Savior and both groups need to know the same thing about the Lord. I get it right out the gate. This is what God wants you to know today. God—or rather, we—we can seek the right treasure because God lives in abundance. We can seek the right treasure because God lives in abundance. You will see this with me in this passage.

This is Matthew chapter 6, 19-34. Jesus is speaking here. He says, “Don’t store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves don’t break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Now the eye, the eye is the lamp of the body. 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. So if the light within you is darkness, how deep is the darkness? No one can serve two masters, since either he will hate one and love the other or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

Therefore, I tell you, don’t worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink. Don’t—don’t worry about your body, what you will wear. Isn’t life more than food, the body more than clothing? Consider the birds of the sky. They don’t sow or reap or gather into barns. Yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you worth more than they? Can any of you add one moment to your lifespan by worrying? And why do you worry about clothes? Observe the wild flowers of the field, how they grow. They don’t labor or spin thread. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was adorned like one of these. If that’s how God clothed the grass of the field, which is here today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, won’t He do much more for you, oh you of little faith?

So don’t worry, saying, “What will we eat or what will we drink or what will we wear?” For the Gentiles, they eagerly seek all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. I’ll say that again because someone in here needs to know this: Your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you. Therefore, don’t worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble on its own.

We can seek the right treasure because God lives in abundance. Jesus begins that incredible passage that I’m sure if you’ve grown up in church, you’ve heard about. Even some of our kind of phrases in American, especially southern culture, are drawn from some of these verses. Jesus begins this with a word to the wealthy. He looks at them. He says, “Don’t store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, where thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven.”

That word “store up” is fascinating. It’s the sarizo. The sarizo. I’ve got a little lisp. That just made the little lisp a little bigger of a lisp. It means to accumulate, to treasure deeply. It’s kind of like if you saw a kid maybe on October 31st and they dumped out all their candy and they’re just kind of grabbing all their candy with both arms. They’re just accumulating. They’re treasuring. They’re salivating over it. They’re just kind of ruminating over it. That’s what Jesus is saying. He’s saying, “Hey, when you get treasure, it’s like you’re storing it up. You’re just salivating over it.”

And that word thesarizo, it’s used not just for money, but also for valuables. So Jesus says, “Don’t store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust and thieves destroy and steal.” That’s because in Jesus’s time in the ancient Near East, oftentimes wealth was commonly stored up. It was stacked up. It was counted up in the textiles you owned, the grain you had harvested, or the precious metal coins you had squirreled away. Quite literally, people would lose their wealth because moths would come in and eat away their textiles. Rust would destroy that precious stone. Thieves would come in and the precious metals. Thieves would come in and take.

You see, what Jesus was speaking to is a group of people that saw their wealth in these very physical, tangible terms. It was easy for them to understand what Jesus was saying. Jesus is saying, “Hey, don’t be so focused on just gathering more and more stuff.”

But here’s the issue. God’s not against treasure. God’s not even against your pursuit of treasure or your desire of treasure. Look at verse 20. Jesus literally says, “Store up treasure.” The issue is where your treasure is. Jesus says, “Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven.” The issue is where you’re storing and what you’re storing.

You see, seeking treasure in heaven is a sure investment. There are no moths to eat away. There is no rust to destroy. There are no thieves to break in and steal in heaven. Seeking treasure in heaven’s the sure investment because on earth all wealth will die out and wear out. There is a treasure that you can always have. There is an investment that’s got a 100% or more return. It’s just not in this life. There is a treasure you are meant to find. A treasure you’re meant to hunt. A treasure that you are meant to store up. But it’s not here.

Treasure in this life is meant to be spent on helping others enjoy eternal life, not making today more comfortable, influential or profitable. Jesus is not looking at people and saying you are wrong to have money. He is saying you are wrong to think that money here is the end all and be all of life. There has got to be so much more than having treasures here on earth.

Anybody else recognize that wealthy people could be some of the most miserable people? Constantly miserly going through what you have and what you don’t have. Always wishing for more. Always just looking at the next investment, the next toy, the next treasure, the next tax bracket to earn up to.

Jesus is not saying that seeking treasure is bad. What He’s saying is seek the right kind of treasure, and everyone’s got some sort of earthly treasure. What is it for you? I want to ask you again. Everyone has some sort of earthly treasure. What is it for you? For you, it might be a physical thing like a vehicle that you own or the clothes that you wear or the stuff you you play with. Others, your treasure might be an investment account. It might just be the bottom line, the how many dollars you have attributed to your name on somebody’s computer. Your treasure might be the land that you sit on or the house that you live in.

Man, when Becca and I lived overseas, I felt like my heart had gotten to this place where I was able to live without needing to gain more and more stuff. And then we come back to America and we land in Lexington and I start to find that I had not graduated. Y’all, I tell you, God provided an incredible Honda Accord for me back when me and Becca got married. We land in Lexington and I’m like, “God, I would really like to have a Chevy Silverado, a Ford F-150. Just give me something. God, just raise my cab just a little bit. Stretch out a, you know, and I found myself just, man, coveting people’s trucks.” It felt so ridiculous, but this is where I really was.

I found that, man, my thoughts would go to it. How could I make enough money to be able to buy a truck? It’s ridiculous. I’ll be the first ridiculous person to say I’m normal because we all have a treasure. We’ve all got something that you would bend the ark of your life to have if you just knew you could get it. What’s your treasure? It might already be in your possession. You might already have something. And when I say, “Hey, can I use your blank?” You be like, “No way, Jose. Everyone’s got a treasure. And I believe that this morning, God is inviting you to seek heavenly treasure instead.

So, how do you do that? It’s when you use your earthly treasures as tools for God’s purposes. There’s nothing wrong with having that nice car. Why not use that car to pick up one of our shut-ins and take them grocery shopping? It’s fine to have a lot of money in your bank account. Why not take some of the interest off those investments and pay somebody’s light bill or their heat this winter? It’s okay to have a nice house on nice land. Why don’t you invite somebody else to come and enjoy a meal in your home with you?

When you use your earthly treasures for God’s purposes, those earthly treasures get baptized in God’s kingdom and they become heavenly treasures. So that way you don’t just get to enjoy the thing here we’ll look at next week. You get to send it on ahead of you. You get to enjoy it in heaven. Those earthly things become heavenly things.

And we need that type of reorientation with our lives and our vision because Jesus says the eye is the lamp of the body. If your eye is healthy, your whole body be filled with light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body be full of darkness. So if the light within you is darkness, how deep is that darkness? Jesus is using a word picture that for us we don’t quite understand. But man, if you were eating by candlelight tonight because you don’t have a switch on your wall you can fling, you would understand how valuable it is to have good light sources for us. Whenever we want to add a little bit of light, the whole house is illuminated. But imagine maybe tonight some of us need to do this. Don’t turn on any lights, just use candles. And you would understand the value of a bright candle. The people back then, they would know a dim candle meant a dim life. It’d be hard to live according to dim light.

What Jesus is saying is the eye, it’s like the candle of your soul. What you focus on either allows the light of God’s presence into you or it cast it out. What you focus on either lights up your life or it dims your soul. When you constantly seek earthly treasures, just wrapping your arms around more, the light of God’s presence grows tragically dim in you.

This will offend somebody, but I’ve got to say it. If your life is oriented around getting more, saving more, or securing more, you cannot enjoy the presence of God’s light in you. That’s not my words. That’s Jesus. Because no one can serve two masters, since he will hate one and love the other, or he’d be devoted to one and despise the other. You can’t serve God and money. We can be church people. We can give money to charity. We can use our finances to meet people’s needs and our lives be dark and miserable because our Ultimate motivation is to make and get and secure more. Here’s the thing. Treasure in this life will never satisfy. You’ve been made for so much more than dollars and toys and houses. You’ve been made for so much more than that nice vehicle and all those accomplishments. God has written eternity on your soul so that you would want Him. And in the time that we are going through this life on our pilgrimage from here to our real home, man, we get trapped with all these desires for lesser things. Vehicles are cool. Houses are cool. Nice clothes, that’s cool. A lot of money in your account, yeah, that’s cool. But none of that will actually satisfy you because your life, your soul has what I would call a God-sized and a God-shaped hole. A hole that nothing else fits into and a hole that nothing else can be filled by. You need God. You don’t need more money. You need God. You don’t need more toys. You need God. You don’t need a cooler, nicer, more beautiful home. You need God.

So God came and gave Himself so that we would have life and we would have it abundantly. Jesus Himself said that He is the way, the truth, and the life. And no one comes to the Father except through Him. If you want life, it is not found in the next transaction. If you want life, it is not found in the next success. If you want life, it’s not found in more money when you retire. If you want life, it is found in Jesus Christ who came to die for you so that you could live not just here, but forever. God wants to satisfy you. Psalm 16:11 says that at God’s right hand are pleasures forevermore. In His presence there is fullness of joy.

Man, some of us are teeter-tottering in our Christianity. We do a little bit of Jesus on the weekends and on Wednesdays occasionally with a Bible study or watching a preacher online, but man, on Mondays and the rest of the week, we’re checking our bank accounts. We’re looking at all the stuff we can buy. And this is our life constantly flip-flopping between serving God or serving treasure. And God is saying, “Treasure is fine, but get Me first.” When you get Me first, you will not be beholden to this stuff. This morning, I’m curious. Is Jesus your master or is Charles Schwab, South State, Ford, are they your master?

Jesus turns though from talking to those who have more than enough to talking to those who are not sure that they will have enough. Jesus speaks not just to the wealthy but also to the worried because like I said both groups need the same Savior. Both groups need to sit under the truth that we can seek the right treasure because God lives in abundance. So He gives this word to the worried. He begins, “Therefore I tell you, don’t worry.” Man, my man Jesus says some audacious things. Don’t worry. Seriously, don’t worry. Did anybody else come in this morning with a couple worries? Am I the only weird one here? Okay, we all come in with some worries.

Jesus is talking to people who live on like a hand-to-mouth basis. These are people that were making enough today to be able to eat tomorrow. They had some legitimate anxieties about tomorrow’s daily bread. And Jesus looks at them and He says, “Don’t worry.” That might be you right now. That might be you. You have some very real financial anxieties. You might be curious how you’re going to make ends meet. You might be curious how you’re going to keep the house warm through the winter. You might be curious what you’re eating for dinner tonight. And Jesus looks at you and He says, “Hey, that’s real. Just don’t worry.”

Some of us would really be blessed to go outside and just take a walk. Jesus takes us through a mental way of doing that. Jesus says, “Consider the birds. Look at the birds.” Man, the other day I was doing my quiet time on the porch and the sun is coming up and I’m listening to the birds and I’m watching the birds just kind of flit around and eat the stuff off the grounds that I didn’t know was there. God says, “I feed those.”

Jesus says, “Look at the wild flowers. I clothe those.” Look at that. That’s a field of, I think I’m saying this right, anemones in Israel above the city of Ashkelon. When Jesus is speaking and He’s looking at all these people gathered together for the Sermon on the Mount, which is What we’re reading from, it’s like He just turned around and said, “Look at the flowers. Even Solomon wasn’t as beautiful as that.” The richest, wisest man in recorded history. He couldn’t clothe himself like that. He couldn’t adorn himself like that. My Father in heaven, He just does it. Look at them. Look how God provides for even the smallest of animals, and He just bathes the world in beauty through the wild flowers. Look at those things and take heart. Don’t be worried.

You know the crazy thing about those flowers that I learned this week? The people of Israel, they would take them, clip them off, dry them out, and they would use that as kindling for their daily fires. Jesus is literally saying, “Hey, all those beautiful flowers which literally are just gathered, dried, and burned, they are more beautiful than anything this world could ever offer you. If God is so abundantly beautiful with them who are here today and burned tomorrow, won’t God take care of you?”

Man, some of you haven’t rested in months. You came in this morning and you are just wearing anxiety like a winter coat, and you’re just carrying the weight of survival on your shoulders. Man, Jesus is not scolding. He’s not chastising. He’s not correcting. None of that. No, He’s coming alongside you, and He wants to relieve you. Look at the birds. Look at the flowers. Your heavenly Father sees you. If God feeds the birds, won’t He feed you? If God so abundantly dresses this world in flowers which are gone tomorrow, won’t He clothe you?

And notice who Jesus says does these things. It’s our Father in heaven. Jesus says, “Don’t worry because you have a heavenly Father who sees you.” The Gentiles wouldn’t have had much of a handle for that. Jesus is speaking to Jews here. That’s why Jesus says, “The Gentiles eagerly seek all these things. But your heavenly Father knows that you need them.” You see, the Gentiles don’t have the history with God that the Jewish people had. They wouldn’t have had much of a handle for understanding God’s incredible provision and His miraculous abundance on behalf of His people.

The Gentiles, they wouldn’t have known how God’s people, Israel, were trapped in Egypt and they needed a miraculous exodus to get them out of there. But God did that. The Gentiles, they wouldn’t have known how once God got them out of Egypt, He led them through the wilderness with a pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire to lead them from where they were to where God wanted them to be. The Gentiles didn’t know that. The Gentiles didn’t know about when the people of Israel were hungry and God literally rained bread from the sky for them to eat. And He literally made quail come and rest so that the people of Israel could rise, kill, and eat. The Gentiles didn’t know that.

The Gentiles didn’t know that God would have promised a Savior to take care of their deepest need way back in the book of Genesis, and that Jesus, the guy talking on the scene, was God’s provision of our ultimate needs. The Gentiles didn’t know that, but man, we know that, don’t we? Do you know that God has been providing for you this whole time? That God completed His ultimate provision for you? See, what you ultimately need is not more food in your stomach or more clothes on your body, though those are real needs. What you ultimately need is for you to be forgiven by a holy God. And that is not something you can take care of yourself. That is the ultimate provision that you cannot earn and you cannot work for. So God in His infinite, loving, abundant kindness provided that for you.

When Jesus was perfect and we were sinners, God sent His Son to this world so that Jesus would take on our sins that we could become the righteousness of God. This incredible exchange between God and man. And all you do to tap into that is to recognize by faith that God saves you by grace. And as the outflow of that, you get to walk and live with Him forever. The Gentiles didn’t know that. But do you know that?

But do you? I’ve got like three that know that. Do you know that?

Do you know that God has been taking care of you this entire time?

Do you know that God has been providing for you for all of your life? Do you know that money and stuff, though necessary, are not ultimate? Do you know that?

Man, God always keeps His promises. And right Here in Matthew chapter 6, Jesus is promising the Heavenly Father will keep His word to take care of you. But let’s be real, we still doubt it. Where are you doubting God’s abundance? You might be looking at some babies you don’t know how to feed, and you’re like, “God, what are you going to do?” You might be looking at rent coming up or a mortgage payment that you can’t handle, and you’re like, “God, where are we going to sleep?” You might be looking at medical bills stacking up to solve something that you still won’t have any answer to, and you’re like, “God, how are we going to pay for this?”

Man, I tell you, for me, growing up, fourth of five kids, blue-collar home, there’s five kids, so my mom wasn’t really able to work. I grew up with some food insecurity, eating dinner, not watching or watching my parents not eat dinner, thinking they just weren’t hungry. Growing up after the fact, realizing, man, we didn’t have enough food. Man, that’s created some anxiety for me. But God has been meeting these things. God has been handling these things.

Look at how God has taken care of you so far. Remember the time where God gave you that timely paycheck and you’re able to take care of all your bills? Do you remember that? Do you remember the time where God took care of your groceries through the kindness of a stranger and He filled your pantry and your fridge? Do you remember that? Man, I remember getting to seminary and us being short by a couple thousand on tuition and getting a check from some unknown stranger I still don’t know to this day of the exact amount that we needed for tuition. I remember that. Do you remember where God has provided for you? Do you remember that?

Man, it’s easy to doubt. It’s so easy to doubt. But God time and time again has been providing for us. You are not here without God’s provision of you. God has abundance, and because of that we can seek the right treasure. So Jesus says, seek seek first the kingdom of God. Seek His righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you.

Man, I’m not going to overpromise and say that if you start reading your Bible then God is gonna blow up your checking account, you’ll get tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars. I’m not going to say that. I’m also not going to say that to seek the righteousness of God means that you got to sell everything and live in a van down by the river. That’s not what I’m trying to communicate. What I am meaning to communicate is that when you put the first things first, God tends to give you the second things second. When you put God first, what usually happens is that the second things also come with it. When you pursue walking with God, God will pursue taking care of your needs in an abundant way that you will not be able to explain.

Here’s the deal. God lives in abundance. God promises to handle your needs. God calls you to prioritize His kingdom. Which means against the difficulties, against the doubt, against the haziness, God is calling you to live generously. Everybody on the spectrum of wealth, from the very wealthy to the legitimately worried, God is calling all of us to use our money and our stuff for His purposes. If you are worried financially, God still wants generosity for you. See, God doesn’t need your money. I’m not up here preaching about money because God needs it, but God wants you to know the joy and the freedom of generosity.

Man, if you’re worried financially, what would it look like for you to take $20 and intentionally share it with somebody else who’s in need? And you get to be God’s instrument of generosity in their life. For the financially worried, man, my my ini invitation to you is to sign up for Financial Peace. We’re kicking this thing off in two weeks from now. Love to give you some handles for how you can grow practically in putting first things first. Man, if you want to sign up for Financial Peace, if you want to learn how to get out of debt and how to snowball some healthy habits, may you just write your name and your information on the little FPU slip in the bulletin and drop it in one of the offering plates. I get you connected with Scott who’s going to lead you in finances a lot better than I could.

I would invite you to consider contributing to one of the Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes. I mean, our goal was 400. So far, we’ve got 383, which I am so proud of. And I would love for us in the next week. You got to get them in before next Monday. In the next week, man, for us to blow that goal of 400 out of the water. You don’t have to be rich to do that. You just got to seek the right treasure.

For everybody this morning that I want to close with a short liturgy of generosity. We begin our service with what’s called a liturgy. Just a call and response. Liturgy literally just means the work of the people. It’s you ministering to you so that you will love God more. It’s simple.

Father, I choose to trust your abundance today. Help me to live for heavenly treasure.

Here’s what I would invite you to do. If you want to grow in generosity, for you to just open your hands and say this with me as a prayer. I’ll read a line, you read the same line. I’ll read the second line, you read the second line, I’ll read the third line, you read the third line. And this will be how we close this part of our service.

Father, I choose to trust.

Fatherus, >> your abundance today. >> Your abundance today. >> Help me to live for heavenly treasure. >>

Father, thank You for providing for us, for taking care of our needs and honestly most of our wants. I pray for the wealthy in the room, Lord, that they would learn to seek the right treasure, Father, that they would not be beholden to amassing more and more for themselves. I pray for the worried in the room, Lord, who have legitimate anxieties about how to take care of their families, that You would also free them up to live with generosity. God, for all of us, that we would serve You and not money. Help us to seek the right treasure today. Thank You, Lord.