Bible Talks - Traditional Church (Sunday 8am)
Kingdom perspectives
Sunday, 02 July 2006
Last week in our talk on the Sermon on the Mount we looked at that balance between two of Jesus’ statements. The first – “let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” And the second - “Be careful not to do your ‘acts of righteousness’ before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.” We looked at this second statement from the point of view of our public religious life, how to be authentic Christians in the world but keeping the focus on God and Jesus rather than ourselves. In today’s passage Jesus talks about how we live our public lives in this world, questions of money, food, drink, clothes, ambition. If you like Jesus is talking about our secular lives rather than our religious lives, but we mustn't push the differentiation too far. everything we do in our lives is religious in the sense that everything is done in God's presence. No matter how secular it may seem, cleaning your teeth, shopping, fixing the car, changing the baby's nappy, it's all part of your life before God. In fact I'd venture to say that often it's harder to be consistently Christian in these ordinary things of life than it is when you're doing obviously religious things like going to church.
In all areas of our lives the call from Jesus is the same; to be different from the culture around us. In religious life, to be different from the hypocrisy of the ultra-religious and in secular life to be different from the materialism of the irreligious. A while back I heard someone say that the greatest attack on Christian faith today comes
from the materialism of our culture. We need to ask ourselves are we different from our non-Christian neighbours? Look at us. we drive the same cars, we go to the same places for holidays, we shop at the same supermarkets, we send our kids to the same schools, we watch the same TV shows, and the list could go on and on. Are we significantly different from our neighbours? Do we belong to the Christian counter culture or are we so thoroughly immersed in our materialistic society that any trace of our Christianity is well hidden? Like I said last week, if being Christian was against the law would there be enough evidence to convict you.
Jesus challenges us to be different by placing before us choices that go right to the heart of our value system. We can't sit on the fence, we either belong to God's kingdom or the world's kingdom, and these choices don't have simplistic answers because if we choose God's kingdom we're going to be different from our neighbours around us.
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth...but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven....for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Now obviously anyone whose going to store up treasure will store up lasting treasure. but do we? How much do we invest our security in earthly things which are corruptible by such things as moths, rust, inflation, devaluation, not to mention stock market crashes and civil wars.
Now while it is important to face up to what it was that Jesus was prohibiting when he told us not to store up treasures on earth, it's also important to be sure of those things he wasn't forbidding.
First he was not forbidding possessions in themselves. There is no scriptual ban on private property. Abraham, Job and Solomon were the richest men in the world in their day.
Secondly saving for a rainy day, which includes investments and insurance, are not forbidden. Scripture commends us to emulate the ant who stores in summer for the winter.
Thirdly we are not to despise, but enjoy the good things our creator has given to us to richly enjoy.
So neither having possessions, nor making provision for the future ,nor enjoying the blessings of this life are forbidden under this ban on storing up earthly treasure. So what is included in the ban? What Jesus forbids is selfish accumulation of goods. Do not store up for yourselves treasure on earth. Extravagant and luxurious living, the hardheartedness that ignores the need of others, the foolish fantasy that life consists of the abundance of possessions, the materialism that says that this life is all that there is. Those are the things that tether our hearts to this earth. That make us earthly rather than heavenly minded.
I always remember the comedian Bill Cosby doing a monologue about the accumulation of stuff. His most memorable line was when he said that many people go through the world with the belief that when you die he who has the most stuff wins.
Martin Luther wrote "whenever the gospel is taught and people seek to live according to it, there are two terrible plagues that always arise: false preachers who corrupt the teaching, and then sir greed, who obstructs right living"
Job reminds us that we can take nothing with us into heaven, so the treasures of this earth will pass away.
But the treasures of heaven are a Christ-like character, a lasting faith, a sure hope, a loving heart that wants to introduce others to Jesus, the use of our resources (notice I didn't just say money) the use of all our resources for the extension of the kingdom. All these are temporal activities but all have eternal consequences. they can't be stolen, or corrupted.
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!
What Jesus is talking about here is our ambition. What we set our eyes and our hearts on. A noble and singleminded ambition to serve God and man adds meaning to life and throws light on all we do. But ignoble, selfish ambition plunges us into moral darkness. It makes us intolerant, ruthless and deprives our life of ultimate significance.
No one can serve two masters. Who are we going to serve, God or mammon. The creator or the creation. That's what humanism, the basic religion of our society is all about. Our society puts man in the place of God. The Apostle Paul in the first chapter of his letter to the Christians at Rome said "they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the creator."
Jesus is again striking at the fundamental attitudes of a persons heart. What matters isn't whether or not you have money. Whether or not you own a yatch. Whether or not you own a large or a small slice of the world's goodies. What matters is where what you do have comes in relationship to God. Is all your stuff occupying that foremost place in your heart that rightly belongs to God. Or is God enthroned in your heart, ruling your life and are your possessions available to him for his purposes?
The final bit of this passage sums it all up. "Therefore I tell you do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?.....for the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly father knows that you need them. but seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. each day has enough trouble of its own."
Jesus has told us to weigh up the two alternatives. We want to accumulate treasure? Then which of the two storehouses holds lasting treasure? Which has eternal significance? Which is more worthy of our devotion? Which is more important? This life or the next? Too often while saying in all sincerity - the next of course, we then turn around and live our everyday lives as if this life is all there is. Contrary to Jesus command we do worry, we are anxious about the incidentals of this life, like food and drink and clothing. Worry over these incidentals says Jesus is incompatible with Christian faith.
This doesn't mean that we pay them no attention whatsoever, we're told in the Lord's prayer to pray for our daily bread, and we're reassured that God our heavenly father knows that we need them. But that's where they belong. They are only incidentals. The important issues are God's kingdom and God's righteousness. The fact that we're in the main preoccupied with the incidentals is a reflection of our lack of faith. Jesus said "O you of little faith." We are quite prepared to let God look after the really important things like the forgiveness of our sins and our eternal destinies but when it comes to the disposition of our money, or the size of our wardrobe, or what food we eat, well then we know better than God and we'll look after that, thank you very much.
What then is our Christian ambition? All of us have an ambition to be or to do something. When we were children our ambitions were often of the fireman or ballarina or astronaut type. I was reported as once saying, “When I grow up I just want to be like Dadddy and go to work each day and come home again.” As adults our ambitions often include riches or fame, but ultimately there are only two possible ambitions. We can be ambitious for God or we can be ambitious for ourselves. There is no third alternative. Our self oriented ambitions may be quite modest, sufficient food, clothing and shelter, or they may be grandiose, the biggest house, the fastest car, the highest salary, the most power.
But whether modest or grandiose they are still ambitions for self. my comfort, my wealth, my status, my power. Ambitions for God, however are never modest. It is somehow inappropriate to have small ambitions for God. God is the creator and ruler of the universe. If we're clear on that then we'll want to see him crowned with glory and honour and power. We'll become ambitious to see his kingdom and righteousness spread everywhere. our own personal ambitions are secondary to this overall ambition for God.
It's right to want to develop our God given gifts, it's right to seek promotion to widen our sphere of influence for the gospel, it's right to extend our physical resources so that we can give more for the work of God. After all Jesus told us “to let our lights shine before men that they may see our good deeds and praise our father inheaven.”
This morning I'm challenging you, as this passage challenges us all, to consider what it is that you count most important in life. Is it something that can or will pass away? Or is it the only thing that can't and won't ever pass away? Are you saving up treasures in heaven or treasures on earth?
Let us pray.
Lord God when we remember the love you have for us in sending your son Jesus to live among us, to be an example for us, but most
importantly to take our place and die for us the death that we deserve for our disobedience to you, help us today to see clearly what it is that we count most dear. If it is earthly treasure that will pass away, help us to reassess and to replace it with heavenly treasure that will last for ever.
we ask this in Jesus' dear name. AMEN.