REVIEW
FLIP CHART: SOM’S KEY VERSE, GOAL, MOTTO
“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness ….” (Mt. 6:33a).
The law sends us to Christ for justification; Christ sends us back to the law for sanctification.
FLIP CHART: Show new “Perfect Righteousness” chart explaining steps to coming to Christ (As a worm, mourning, meek, spiritual hunger/thirst with the result of legal righteousness). Explain: moral righteousness, immediate moral change at conversion, gradual change through life’s challenges and speeding up moral change via CCRC (Concentration, Choice, Reflection and Confession/Thanksgiving). Key verse, “By one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy” (Heb. 10:14).
FLIP CHART: John Stott’s outline of SOM.
19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
24 “No one can serve two masters. 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 both God and Money.
TABLE ACTIVITY: What title would you give to 6:19-34?
INTRODUCTION
John Stott titles 6:18-34 as “A Christians Ambition.” He feels that in this section Jesus warns us against materialism of the irreligious. You will note that “the Gentiles” are on his mind here and the challenge is to renounce their value system.
Vs. 32: The pagans run after (epizeteo) all these things ….. “run after” has been translated: seek, worry about, have thoughts dominated by, fuss about, diligently seek, eagerly seek, aim their life at, busy themselves with, be deeply concerned about material things.
FLIP-CHART – Vs. 33: But seek (zeteo) ye first the kingdom of God …. The same root word. So we could translate Mt. 6:33 as follows: We should have our thoughts dominated by God’s Kingdom and righteousness. We must worry, fuss about, be deeply concerned with, eagerly, diligently seek and aim our life at the extension of God’s Kingdom and growth in His righteousness.
REVIEW:
(1) The Bible suports Private Property – God gives us the ability to produce wealth (Deut. 8:18) and the commandment “You shall not steal.” (2) Our Private Property is Not Our Own — The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for he founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters. (Psalms 24:1-2) (3) We can discern the true state of our heart by discovering our treasure. Where our treasure, there is our heart.
QUESTION: Can you list the five questions that help us discover our true treasures and thus what our heart truly loves?
a. What occupies my idle thoughts, day dreams?
b. What do I fret about, worry about most? If asked “What is your major concern?” what would I say?
c. Apart from loved ones, what would I most dread losing?
d. What do I measure others by? Clothing? Education? Home? Athleticism? Business success?
e. What is it that we can not be happy without?
(4) We are not to treasure up treasure on earth.
(5) Materialism is the theory or attitude that physical well-being and worldly possessions constitute the greatest good and the highest value in life.
(6) Increased wealth does not guarantee increased happiness.
(7) Wealth is insignificant in the light of eternity.
OUTLINE FOR TODAY:
1. Laying Up Treasures in Heaven
2. An Eye for Generosity
HEAVENLY TREASURES
I. LAYING UP TREASURES IN HEAVEN
19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
QUESTION: What does it mean to “store up treasures in heaven?”
The development of a Christ like character, the increase of faith, hope and charity, growth in the knowledge of Christ, introduce others to Christ, use of our money for Christian causes.
I feel the context indicates that material wealth is the main focus of the text and that we store up treasure in heaven by using our material wealth for the extension of God’s Kingdom!
Vs. 19-21 focus on material wealth …. moths, rust, thieves. We will see that vs. 22-23 focus on generosity. Vs. 24 is about Mammon, e.g. money. Vs. 25-31 us plainly about food, drink, clothing. Vs. 32 is about the pagans seeking material things. Vs. 34 is clearly referring to material needs.
“Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted.” (Luke 12:33)
READ: The Parable of the Shrewd Manager (Lk. 16:1-9)
TABLE ACTIVITY: What is the main lesson set forth in this parable?
What we do with our worldly wealth now affects our eternal future.
“I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.” (Luke 6:9)
Is there a soul who died, who died because of me,
Forever shut away from heaven and from Thee;
Because I tightly clutched my little earthly store
Nor sent Thy messengers unto some distant shore?
Will there be some in heaven that are there because of our giving that will “welcome” us into “eternal dwellings?”
The unrighteous manager was “shrewd” and praised by Jesus because he planned for the future.
Randy Alcorn in his book The Treasure Principle says, “I am convinced that the greatest deterrent to giving is this, the illusion that earth is our home.”
Jesus, by telling us to store up treasures in heaven, is warning us about confining our ambitions to this life!
We need to continually remind ourselves that we are pilgrims here.
QUESTION: What is the goal of a pilgrim?
A man came to Jesus asking him to intervene in a family dispute and get his brother to divide his inheritance with him. Jesus answered, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” (Luke 12:15)
Speaking to the people, he went on, “Take care! Protect yourself against the least bit of greed. Life is not defined by what you have, even when you have a lot.” (Luke 12:15, The Message)
“Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age ….” (I Tim. 6:18-19)
But remember, it is not how much you give. God looks at percentages:
Just then he looked up and saw the rich people dropping offerings in the collection plate. Then he saw a poor widow put in two pennies. He said, “The plain truth is that this widow has given by far the largest offering today. All these others made offerings that they’ll never miss; she gave extravagantly what she couldn’t afford—she gave her all!” (Luke 21:1-4, The Message)
Remember that most of the people in the crowd hearing the Sermon on the Mount were very poor people. When he talked about storing up treasures in heaven he was talking to the poor.
“After all, if our object is to lay up treasure, we shall presumably concentrate on the kind which will last and can be stored without either depreciation or deterioration.” (Stott, 154). “There are no moths, mice or marauders in heaven” (Stott, 156).
We need to continually ask ourselves questions like, “How important will gold lettering on my Camry be 100 trillion years from now?”
John Wesley is a great example for us. During his exceptionally long ministry, which spanned most of the eighteenth century, he earned a considerable amount of money from published sermons and other works. Yet he left only $50 when he died because he continually gave what he earned to the Lord’s work. (MacArthur, 410).
FLIP CHART: “God prospers me not to raise my standard of living but to raise my standard of giving.” (Randy Alcorn)
II. AN EYE FOR GENEROSITY
“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! (Mt. 6:22-23)
THE EYE OF THE HEART
READ: Go back to the first Overhead and read 6:19-24 again.
At first glace 6:22-23 seems to have little to do with storing up treasures on earth / in heaven or in serving God or Mammon that follows. In fact the verse seems totally out of place, a real odd mix.
You have store up, single eye, Mammon, don’t be anxious, pagans focus on drink, food, clothing, seek Kingdom of God. “Single Eye” seems odd.
The first thing to note is that “eye” and “heart” are often synonyms in the Bible. Psalm 119:10 the psalmist writes, “With my whole heart I seek Thee, Let my not wander from Thy commandments” and then in vs. 19, “I have fixed my eyes on all Thy commandments.”
Here in SOM Jesus mentions, “Where your treasure is there your heart will be also” and then immediately shifts to the condition of the eye.
“These verses (22-23) expand on the previous three, and the eye becomes an illustration of the heart. (MacArthur, 413)
Ephesians 1:18 Paul writes, “I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened…”
In vs. 21 Jesus is talking about a “healthy” heart. In vs. 22 he is talking about the condition of eye.
A GOOD, SINGLE, HEALTHY OR GENEROUS EYE?
The word for good is haplous and is translated as simple, single, whole, good, fulfilling its office, sound of the eye, clear, generous.
The word haplous is used in the Septuagint translation of Prov. 11:25.
*** The Septuagint is the Koine Greek version of the Hebrew Bible, translated in stages between the 3rd and 1st centuries BC in Alexandria. The Septuagint also includes some books not found in the Hebrew Bible.It is the oldest of several ancient translations of the Hebrew Bible into Greek, the lingua franca of the eastern Mediterranean since Alexander the Great (356-323 BC). The word septuaginta means “seventy” in Latin and derives from a tradition that seventy (or seventy-two) Jewish scholars translated the Pentateuch (Torah) from Hebrew into Greek for Ptolemy II Philadelphus, 285–246 BC. (Wikipedia)
Proverbs 11:25: A generous man will prosper; he who refreshes other will himself be refreshed.
The liberal soul shall be made fat; and he that watereth shall be watered also himself (Prov. 11:25)
When the 72 Jewish scholars translated the word liberal and generous in this verse from Hebrew into Greek they used the Greek word “haplous.”
Romans 12:8; II Cor. 8:2; II Cor. 9:11 and James 1:5 also translates a derivative of haplous as generous.
“… if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously (haplotes) (Romans 12:8). “…their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity (haplotes) (II Cor. 8:2). “You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous (haplotes) ….” (II Cor. 9:11). “… God who gives generously (haplos) to all without finding fault ….” (James 1:5)
So there seems ample support for translating the word “good” as “generous” and if so the verse would read: If your eyes are generous, your whole body will be full of light.”
A good, sound, healthy eye is a “generous” eye, an eye that sees the needs of others and the importance of extending the kingdom of God and gives generously. This is an eye that is focused on the eternality of heaven. A “generous” eye can see much more than a person can see with just physical sight.
“I believe that it is in this sense (generosity) of the word that is present here in Christ’s teaching. The “single eye” is the “generous eye.” And if that is the case, then Jesus is promoting a generous spirit in regard to our money. How can you tell whether riches have clouded our spiritual vision? The answer may be determined by the extent to which we are generous with the goods which we have been given. (Boice, 217)
A good eye is a generous eye because it is not focused on this world. It is focused on heaven.
SO WHAT???
1. Our main ambitions in life must be the extension of the Kingdom of God and the living of a righteous life.
2. The only sound and safe investment of our personal wealth is in the extension of God’s kingdom.