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
Theme of 6:18-34 is “A Christian’s Ambition.” Here Jesus warns us against materialism. We are challenged to renounce the value system of the pagan.
Vss. 32-33: The pagans focus on material wealth, we are to focus on God’s Kingdom and God’s righteousness.
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 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 supports Private Property
(2) Our Private Property is Not Our Own
(3) We can discern the true state of our heart by discovering our treasure. Where our treasure is, there is our heart.
FLIP CHART: Five questions that help us track our treasures and discover the state of our heart.
a. What are my idle thoughts, day dreams?
b. What do I worry about most?
c. What would I most dread losing?
d. What do I measure others by? Clothing? Education? Home? Athleticism? Business success?
e. What can’t I be happy without?
(4) We are not to be materialists treasuring up treasure on earth. Flip Chart: [Materialism is the theory or attitude that physical well-being and worldly possessions constitute the greatest good and the highest value in life.]
(5) Wealth is insignificant in the light of eternity.
(6) We are to store up material wealth (money) in heaven.
(7) Our Father wants us to be generous.
OUTLINE FOR TODAY:
1. An Eye for Generosity
2. A Stingy Eye
3. Light that is Darkness
EYE SIGHT & WORLDVIEW
I. 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 APPARENT LACK OF LOGIC IN THE CONTEXT
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. “eyes are good Eye” seems odd, out of place.
THE EYE OF THE HEART
The first thing to note is that “eye” and “heart” are often synonyms in the Bible.
Ephesians 1:18 Paul writes, “I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened…”
In Vs. 21 Jesus says, “Where your treasure is there your heart will be also” and then immediately shifts to the condition of the eye.
In vs. 21 Jesus is talking about a “healthy” heart. In vs. 22 he is talking about the condition of the eye.
A GOOD, SINGLE, HEALTHY OR GENEROUS EYE?
The word for good is haplous and can be 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, 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 (haplous) man will prosper; he who refreshes other will himself be refreshed.
When the 72 Alexandrian Jewish scholars translated Proverbs 11:25 from Hebrew to Greek the Greek word they used for “generous” was “haplous.”
The Greek term haplous and its derivatives are often translated as generous in the NT.
“… 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)
If “good / haplous” in vs. 22 is translated as “generous” the verse will read: If your eyes are generous, your whole body will be full of light.”
“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, 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.
II. A STINGY EYE
“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 key to understanding these verses is to understand the mean of “good” and “bad.”
“Poneros (bad) usually means evil, as it is translated here in the King James Version. In the Septuagint (Greek OT) it is often used in translating the Hebrew expression “evil eye,” a Jewish colloquialism that means grudging, or stingy (See Deut. 15:9, ‘hostile’; Prov. 23:6 ‘selfish’). “A man with an evil eye,” for example, is one who ‘hastens after wealth’ (Prov. 28:22). (MacArthur, 414)
Beware that there be not a thought in thy wicked heart, saying, The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand; and thine eye be evil against thy poor brother, and thou givest him nought; and he cry unto the LORD against thee, and it be sin unto thee. (Deut. 15:9, KJV)
Eat thou not the bread of [him that hath] an evil eye, neither desire thou his dainty meats: (Prov. 23:6, KJV)
Do not eat the food of a stingy man, do not crave his delicacies for he is the kind of man who is always thinking about the cost. “Eat and drink,” he says to you, but his heart is not with you. (Prov. 23:6-7, NIV)
He that hasteth to be rich [hath] an evil eye, and considereth not that poverty shall come upon him. (Prov. 28:22, KJV)
A stingy man is eager to get rich and is unaware that poverty awaits him (Prov. 28:22, NIV)
READ: The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard (Mt. 20:1-15)
Or are you envious because I am generous? (Mt. 20:15, NIV)
Is thine eye evil (poneros), because I am good? (Mt. 20:15, KJV)
“Do you begrudge my generosity?” (RSV); “Are you envious because I am liberal?” (TCNT); “Must thou give sour looks, because I am generous?” (Knox) “Why be jealous because I am kind?” (NEB)
“If your eyes are bad (stingy, jealous of others who get more than I do, envious when another gets more than I do, begrudging when other benefit, give sour looks when others get more than me) . . . “
Bad Eyes here refer to stingy, selfish eyes which of course fits in the context because that is just the opposite of good/generous eyes. The stingy and selfish person focuses totally on his/her own needs. The stingy have myopic vision. They only see themselves and this world.
A bad (stingy) eye / person can not see the brightness of generosity. It cannot see the blessing of others as storing up treasures in heaven.
III. LIGHT THAT IS DARKNESS
“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)
A person’s “light” here I believe is his belief system, his world view. People hold to their world view, cling to it, defend it, nurture it, seek to strengthen it.
ILL: Secularists and materialists do all they can to defend Darwinism (evolution). They will not consider intelligent design or creationism. In fact they denigrate it and call us the flat-earth people. The film “Expelled” shows the intense devotion Darwinists have for their worldview. They call their world view light. They can “see” and they “understand.” The cosmologist Carl Sagan said that there is the universe and that is all there is. “A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism.” ( Carl Sagan)
ILL: The devotion of Muslims and commitment to their worldview is mind-numbing. Someone said that if Muhammad lived today he would be jailed for life or handed the death sentence. He was a polygamist even though he limited his followers to 4 wives. He was a pedophile, marrying a child. He was a mass murderer ordering his followers to decapitate 700 Jewish men at one time. And yet the devotion of Muslims to Muhammad is unbelievable as you could see in the riots over the Danish cartoons or the present fury over a Dutch politician who wants to expose the evils of Islam. Yet Muslims are totally convinced that they have the “light”.
ILL: Chuck Colson in his book “The Good Life” does a great job in dissecting the world view of Dennis Kozlowski, a multi-millionaire business man, John Cage, a world-famous musician and Wallace Stevens, a famous American poet. The worldview of all these men was that God does not exist, life is meaningless, create your own meaning, grab the gusto, eat, drink and be merry etc.
If the light that is in you (your world view, your belief system) is darkness, how great is that darkness.
God has given us some challenging verses that relate to holding false world views that we claim to be light:
They exchanged the truth of God for a lie … Although they claimed to be wise they became fools. (Romans 1:25,21)
They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe a lie … (II Thes. 2:10-11).
“Woe to those who … put darkness for light and light for darkness …” (Isaiah 5:20).
READ: Isaiah 44:12-20 – The foolishness of making idols (Isaiah 44:12-20) ends with a telling verse about their world view: He feeds on ashes, a deluded heart misleads him; he cannot save himself, or say, “Is not this thing in my right hand a lie?”
A wrong belief system / worldview + a strong confidence and commitment = extreme darkness.
QUESTION: What worldview, belief system, lie is Jesus confronting in this text? In Matthew 6:19-24
FLIP CHART: Materialism: The theory or attitude that physical well-being and worldly possessions constitute the greatest good and the highest value in life.
If we are not materialists we are still affected by American culture. “It is virtually impossible not to be a part of modern western culture, and if you do not think in terms of measured appropriation, biblical evaluation, and thoughtful transformation, you will probably be consumed by the culture and won’t even know that you are more American than you are Christian.” (John Piper)
The big question for us: Do I have an unhealthy pre-occupation with things? Am I focused on laying up treasures on earth? Do I own a generous or a stingy eye? I have a worldview. Is it materialistic? Partially materialistic? Am I more American than I am Christian?
The fact is that an unhealthy preoccupation with things clouds our vision. A self-focused, ungenerous heart that is prioritizing savings accounts and retirement and distorts our ability to see clearly.
One writer asks: Do you see things clearly? Or is your vision of God and his will for your life clouded by spiritual cataracts or near-sightedness brought on by an unhealthy preoccupation with things? I am convinced that this is true for many Christians, particularly those living in the midst of Western affluence. (From the web)
Martin Lloyd-Jones states that not only evil doing dulls the mind and the heart but focusing on earthly treasure can do the same, it can distort our vision.
Translations of Mt. 6:23:
“And if the light you think you have is actually darkness, how deep that darkness is” (NLT).
“If you pull the blinds on your windows what a dark life you will have” (The Message).
TABLE ACTIVITY: Have each table write a paraphrase of Matthew 6:22-24.
“If the eye of your heart is generous and you share with and help others you will experience life in a new way with a clear understanding of how to live in a broken world. But if you are stingy, selfish, miserly because of a materialist worldview your understanding of the meaning and purpose of life will be clouded and dark. Your so called ‘light’ (worldview) will be pitch-black darkness!! Holding a wrong worldview will make you so blind that you will call your that darkness ‘light’.”
QUESTION: Why was the rich fool a rich fool?
Because he was a materialist, had myopic vision and could not see beyond this life, beyond the grave.
THE SON OF GOD GOES OFF TO WAR
That martyr first, whose eagle eye
Could see beyond the grave.
He saw his Master in the sky
And called on him to save.
Like him with pardon on his tongue
In midst of moral pain
He prayed for them who did the wrong
Who follows in his train?
SO WHAT???
1. Our worldview effects how we view our possessions, our material wealth.
2. If we are certain of an eternity with our Father in heaven it will be indicated by a generous, open-handed spirit with the wealth that God has entrusted to us.
3. A stingy, miserly attitude towards our wealth is a sign of being infected with a materialistic spirit.
4. A materialist or a Christian who is infected with the materialist worldview is “feeding on ashes.”