Let’s pray.
Father in heaven, thank you for gathering us this morning. We pray the words of the Prophet Isaiah this morning: bind up the testimonies of our God and seal the teaching among his disciples. We want our lives to reflect your power working in our lives. We want to testify with stories of your powerful grace flowing through our everyday events and moments. God, we want to show the world how great you are and how important you are to us. Help us live in the fullness of being blessed by your presence here and now.

Seal the teaching you have for us today in our hearts and minds. Do not let your instruction fall far from us. Lord we do not want to be distracted from the reality you want us to experience nor do we want to be blinded from the vision you are giving us. Guide our steps and move us appropriately in faith. If any of us find ourselves convicted by your words today, open our hearts and keep us from being restricted by our own affections so that we can follow you wholeheartedly. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

This is week 2 of our series, Buried Treasure, where we are looking at what Jesus teaches us about stewarding our finances. This week, we’re going explore the end game of God’s vision for stewarding the blessings he gives us. 

Let’s go to Matthew 6:19-34.

¹⁹ “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, ²⁰ but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys 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. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, ²³ but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! ²⁴ “No one can serve two masters, for 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 God and money.

²⁵ “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? ²⁷ And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? ²⁸ And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, ²⁹ yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. ³⁰ But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? ³¹ Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³² For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. ³³ But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. ³⁴ “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

(Matthew 6:19-34 ESV)

At a glance, this passage looks like Jesus talking about two different things: So, you’re probably asking, what does money and treasure have to do with worry and anxiety? Jesus actually saw a strong correlation between our relationship with money and our mental health.

• How many people here ever worried about money?
• Like when your next paycheck is coming or how you’re going to pay your bills?
• What about, how you will retire?

You’re not alone. This past April, Bankrate/YouGov conducted a survey on financial wellness in the United States and found some interesting results:

• 52 percent of people surveyed said money has a negative impact on their mental health.
• Money, in fact, is the most cited factor of negative mental health for US adults, greater than one’s own health, current events, and relationships with friends and family
• 4 out of 5 of those people saying money negatively impacted their mental health say they regularly experienced feelings of stress, anxiety, worrisome thoughts, loss of sleep, and depression as a result.
• In terms of frequency, about two-thirds of people say they worry or have anxiety about money at least once a week and about half of those worry or have anxiety about money daily.

Now, if you’re in the 48% of people who don’t worry about money. That’s great. But Jesus wants you to envision his Father’s end game with money so you can continue to live blessed, free from that worry and receive treasures in eternity also.

Now, for the rest of us that worry about money, myself included, because I worry about it sometimes, and have anxiety about it on occasion. Let’s look at how to view money like Jesus teaches so our mental health isn’t impacted negatively by our relationship with it.

If you are in a relationship, get on the same page as your spouse with regard to money. Whenever Michelle and I do marital counseling, about half the time, we found that the primary cause of the marital issues began with unspoken differences about how money is valued and used by each person. Money is an area of Michelle and my relationship that we wrestled with at the beginning of our marriage and getting on the same page about this one issue actually changed our effectiveness as a couple in almost every other area of life.

If we worry about money, the first question we have to ask ourselves is: what is money that we worry about it and have anxiety over it? If we’re honest, we’d say that money is the thing that we treasure, so we worry about not having it and have anxiety over losing it.

Simon Sinek, is an ethnographer and leadership coach, wrote a book a few years back titled, “Infinite Game” and the premise is simple: When we live life with a finite mindset, it will lead to all kinds of problems because life is actually an infinite game. Meaning if we try to live our lives like it’s a soccer game, we’re going to lose in life because life isn’t a finite soccer game. He says short-term thinking like that doesn’t have the right perspective. He argues in that instead of a finite mindset about life and the things of life, that we have to adopt an infinite mindset, that is to live in a way willing to sacrifice the finite for something infinite in the future that doesn’t exist yet.  

Listen to what Jesus says in verse 19 of the passage we just read. 

¹⁹ “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, ²⁰ but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.

If you are a disciple of Jesus, then remember you are not living for finite treasures in this life, you’re living for treasures in the infinite eternity of heaven.

In fact, our greatest treasure here in this life and in eternity is our personal relationship with Jesus. If Jesus Christ is your savior, and you proclaim him to be your king and Lord, no moth, no rust can ever destroy your relationship with him. Jesus cannot be stolen away from you in secret, nor can he be robbed from you. Jesus wants us to recognize him as our true treasure.

If, however, your greatest treasure is here on this earth, if it’s money or possessions, then know that it will be lost during our finite lifetimes or in death.

Jesus continues in verse 21: “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

The gospel is good news to us because we paid nothing for an eternal treasure that cannot be taken away. God paid for our eternity at full cost to himself. God’s one and only son, Jesus, was sent for that purpose. He lowered himself and became human and walked amongst us in this world. It’s why he lived sinless and died blameless. He died to give us, who deserved no treasure, a treasure that cannot be destroyed. When we live in faith, believing that we are placing our full reliance and trust in God expectant of God’s unfading, eternal treasures in heaven given to us at the cost of Jesus’ life. We can trade away everything else in this life for the eternal treasure we received in Jesus, as a gift from God. Jesus is our treasure, and so he is where our hearts are. So our daily affections, motivations, and activities, must reflect a stewardship of that unfading treasure found through the gospel of Jesus.

If we want our affections, motivations, and activities to reflect the heart of treasure, then we have to live with a vision for that treasure.

Point 1. Your vision determines what you do

Vision affects how we live and prioritize our lives. Verse 22.

²² “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, ²³ but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! ²⁴ “No one can serve two masters, for 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 God and money.

If our vision is for eternity, then we will see our activities and things in this life with God’s perspective. However, if our vision is not healthy and all we can see is something finite, then our lives will be ordered toward those finite things. Having an unhealthy vision for money, belongings, and wealth will inevitably fill us with inadequacy, anxiety, and worry. This is true whether or not you’re a Christian. We’ve been nurtured and primed from a young age to serve money in the hopes of not feeling inadequacy, anxiety, and worry, but it’s actually the chase of finite treasures that makes us feel inadequate, anxious, and worried because none of those things last.

As a result:

• We see money placed over calling and then comes the onset of middle life, quarter life, or existential crisis.
• we see belongings placed above family and families break apart because of it.
• We see wealth placed over our souls and every time there is an economic downturn or bad financial outlooks, there is a rise in suicides.

Jesus invites us to having a healthy vision with sights set on infinite treasures because an unleathy vision for finite treasures will leave us broken and lost.

Family, I know, all of us want to live with the right vision. Let’s be honest though, it’s a lot harder to live this way than it sounds. We have obligations, bills, families to take care of. Then there are emergencies and circumstances, things that are out of our control that make it next to impossible to live in a way wholly sold out to live with a vision for that eternal treasure. That brings us to verse 25.

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?

I love Jesus’ question here: is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? While Jesus is using food and clothing, what he is actually talking about are physiological needs, that’s air, food, sleep, for the body to function; and safety needs, that’s property, money, health, , needs people have to feel safe.

Here’s my second point about having a vision for eternal treasures:

Point 2. We can’t let temporary circumstances deter you from seeking God’s will

Verse 26.

²⁶ Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?

That’s one of the hardest parts of our daily hustle and bustle isn’t it, figuring out what to eat? Even if we’re going out to eat, it brings anxiety and worry into our lives. But Jesus says, if you’re worried about basic needs, then look at the birds. So let’s look at the birds in our alleyways that somehow keep surviving and thriving despite the hawks and turkey vultures flying around viciously.  Have you ever noticed our friendly neighborhood flying rat, the pigeon? They are constantly eating or staining your car with what they previously ate. Pigeons don’t have to plan their meals and yet they don’t starve. But they’re not lazy either, they’re constantly working, searching for food. They eat whatever God provides. Sure, God provides food to them through your trash, but the point is that they eat, and they eat well. Like, I haven’t ever seen an emaciated pigeon. Have you?

Jesus says we are more valuable to God than pigeons. God did not send his one and only son into this world to save a pigeon for the purposes of becoming his heir in eternity. But God did send his son, Jesus for you. You may not be sure of where your next meal is coming from, or how you’ll survive in this next season, but God does, and God loves you, so we need to keep living with a vision for his eternity.

Verse 27.

²⁷ And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? ²⁸ And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, ²⁹ yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. ³⁰ But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

Lilies of the field are weeds, that’s what Jesus is talking about. Weeds don’t work or need to be cultivated. But God, Jesus says, makes them beautiful and when they’re done, they’re used for kindling in a fire, then why wouldn’t we expect God, who created us in his image, to care for our safety needs?

Verse 31.

³¹ Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³² For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.

Jesus wants us to shift our perspective, our vision, not for the finite, but for the infinite.

Are you living with a vision for the infinite or are you still only seeing the finite?

The totality of our redeemed lives in Jesus for eternity is worth more to God than any treasure we can obtain in this life, so we cannot allow temporary circumstances cloud our vision. Verse 34.  

“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

I want to go back to how we started our sermon with the survey saying that half of Americans worry and are anxious about money. If that’s you, know that all worry is about finite future needs, but all of our worry and anxiety is experienced now. Jesus is showing us that when our worries, fears, and anxieties are based on a vision of a future limited to this life, which is usually how we see our end game, then we are being moved toward something other than the vision God gives to us about our treasures in eternity.

If we say Jesus is our eternal treasure but only treat him as our treasure when our schedule allows or when our worries, anxieties, and fears are alleviated about the future in this life, then our vision is out of whack and it’s impeding us from laying up treasures in eternity.

So how do we counter act this natural tendency to align ourselves to finite visions of fading treasures of wealth and possessions in this life with the vision of God and treasures in heaven?

By focusing our vision on God’s will.

Big Idea: When we focus on God’s will, he will take care of the rest

Verse 33.

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

If our treasures are eternal and found in Jesus for all of eternity, then we must envision using all of our earthly treasures to prioritize the kingdom of God and God’s righteousness in our lives.  

Theologian John Stott says this, “God is King, [he] has inaugurated his saving reign through Christ and has a right to rule in the lives of his creatures. Our ambition, then, is to seek first his kingdom…. To give priority to the interests of the kingdom of God here and now is not to lose sight of its goal beyond history.”[1]

To seek first the kingdom of God is to live with the vision of spreading the reign of Christ in our lives. We work to humbly submit every single area of our lives: our marriage, kids, work life, bank balance, lifestyle, etc to the will of Christ ruling in us, filtering through our actions. Seeking the kingdom of God first in our lives means Jesus becomes the most important in our lives. Everything we do reflects the importance of Jesus Christ for our lives. How we plan our activities, schedules, and use our time and money would flow in deference to his will.

When Jesus is the primary treasure of our lives, that vision causes us to live on a mission to spread the reign of Jesus in our lives and relationships with people. That means for God’s kingdom where Christ is ruling in our lives, we:

• sacrifice ourselves and wants for our marriages
• prioritize our kids faith over their extra-curricular-activities
• invest in real friendships with our coworkers and neighbors

As a church, we want to help you seek God’s kingdom in your life, that’s why we champion Life Groups and encourage you regularly to plug in with people to grow with. It’s why this Christmas season, we’re producing a family devotional so you can prioritize eating dinner with your family specifically for the purpose of talking about how Christ reigns in your life. It’s why we do events like our men’s and women’s retreats, so God’s kingdom can become the vision of your life and Christ can become Lord over your life.

But the vision we have is not limited to God’s kingdom, it also includes God’s righteousness. Because God is a righteous God, he hates injustice and loves righteousness everywhere. As we seek the kingdom of God in our lives, Jesus says that in this life we must aim to make his righteousness attractive in our personal, family, and work/school life so people outside God’s kingdom will see it and desire it. Pursuing God’s righteousness champions God’s kingdom where it does not exist yet and allows his kingdom to spill over into a world full of people living in desperate darkness, constantly having their treasures lost. They are worried, anxious, and fearful of losing temporary treasures. So in our pursuit of God’s righteousness in your life, give them a vision of eternal treasure to which God gives generously and freely.

What is the vision of God’s righteousness? It’s to champion justice, freeing the oppressed, caring for the widowed, orphaned, and foreigner, and bringing healing to the broken. When we engage in these activities, the whole world will experience the eternal love of God.

That means we:

• we have to stop taking shortcuts and shortchanging our customers or employees to make generate extra profit at work;
• we have to stop seeking our own ambitions, comforts, wealth, status, power, and serve or give to somebody who can never give you the recognition or repay you; or
• we have to go become that foster parent or adopt that child

That’s why we’re setting up the Cedarbrook Foundation, so you can find opportunities through the church to serve people and places where the righteousness of God is desperately needed and where the church is not welcomed or have access to.  

Family, let’s reorder our lives to receive eternal treasures with Jesus in his kingdom.

• Don’t let temporary circumstances in this life deter you from seeking his kingdom or his righteousness.
• Don’t let the finite darken your vision in seeing God’s kingdom expand and his righteousness unfold.
• Live seeking after unfading, heavenly treasures.
• Focus on living in God’s will and find him blessing you by taking care of the rest of your life.

Offering

This morning, as we pause to examine our priorities and clarify our vision toward the eternal treasure God has for us as we seek his kingdom and his righteousness first in our lives. Is your vision, and the actions in your life aligned with God’s kingdom and his righteousness, or has something else captivated your imaginations, causing you to chase after finite treasure, or to tremble in fear, worry, and anxiety about temporary circumstances?

For some of us, we seek God’s kingdom first, every day and in every way. It shows up clearly as you give generously from your finances, testifying to God and to the rest of the world that you trust him to provide for you as you seek his will for you. Keep it up and be encouraged, you are serving God who rewards you with unfading treasure in eternity.

For others of us, let’s live as Jesus instructed, with the right view of treasure and seek after unfading treasure in God’s kingdom. Take a leap of faith and invest into the kingdom of God and his righteousness through the act of faith by giving to God from your area of need in security of finances. You will not regret it.

You can give as the offering plates pass by in your rows, online, via text, or through the giving boxes in the back.

Let’s pray.

Father in heaven, we seek your kingdom first. We seek your righteousness in our lives. We want to live with a vision for your kingdom unfolding in our lives and through our lives into the world we live in. Lord, I want to lift up all of us who struggle with worry, anxiety, and depression. Especially when those things are about our finances, and material needs. Lord, please give us the confidence to know that you have taken care of those needs and will take care of those needs without us worrying about those things. Set our vision and sights on the eternal treasure that you give to us through faith in your son. Manifest your glory in our lives here and now to give us the confidence to move forward seeking after the treasures you have in heaven. Thank you for all that you’ve done, are doing, and will do in blessing us to live in just that way. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

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[1] John Stott, ed., The Message of the Sermon on the Mount: Christian Counter-Culture, Revised Edition., The Bible Speaks Today (London: IVP, 2020), 144–145.