How did Jesus talk about money???

This past week, we launched into the first Sunday of February and left the month of January in the rearview mirror of our lives. We launched into a new month, February, a month that emphasizes and focuses on love, after spending the previous month of January emphasizing and focusing on the idea of a new and fresh year where we can make a new and fresh start. And in January, as part of that emphasis and focus, our culture often prods us to sit down and make a list of what we are going to do differently in the New Year. We even have a name for that list, don’t we? We call that list our New Year’s Resolutions.

And, if we were brutally honest, how many of those New Year’s Resolutions involve money or finances? How many of those resolutions involve getting out of debt, getting into the habit of saving money, or planning financially for retirement? And just as it is for us as individuals, as a church, we have a tendency to look at the New Year as a time to set goals for the future when it comes to finances. As a church, we have a financial budget for 2017 that we have set as a goal to follow. In addition, this year as a church we launched our “2020 Vision”, a three year capital campaign as a church that has set as a goal to raise two million dollars to build a new Family Life Center that would enable us to continue to expand and engage in the kingdom mission that we have been given as a church.

However usually by the end of January, what usually happens to those New Year’s Resolutions that we make as individuals? Usually by the end of January, for the vast majority of us, one of two things has happened: Either we have forgotten about those New Year’s Resolutions, or we have broken those New Year’s Resolutions. So, after forgotten or broken those resolutions, we move onto a new month, with a new emphasis and focus.

However, just because we have forgotten or broken those New Year’s Resolutions and decided to move on to a new month that has a new emphasis and focus, that does not mean that the problems that provoked those resolutions have been solved. You see, while we may have forgotten or broken those resolutions and moved on from those resolutions; the problems that provoked those resolutions remain. And when it comes to finances, the problems that provoked those resolutions still linger and haunt us. And the problem of debt; the problem of having no savings for when problems arise; the problem of a lack of financial planning for retirement; eventually and persistently remind us of their presence and the problems that they present and will continue to present for our lives.

But how do we rid ourselves of those problems that provoked us to make those resolutions that we continue to forget or break? How can we escape the problems of debt, the failure to save money, or planning financially for retirement? To answer these questions, as a church, we are going to spend the next seven weeks in a sermon series entitled treasure. During this series, we are going to spend our time together talking about the subject of money and finances. 

Now, as soon as you found out that we were going to spend seven weeks talking about money, you may have immediately began to push back, to resist. Maybe and one or your major objections to the church, and to Christianity in general, is that you believe that the church just wants your money.

If I have just described the objections, the push back, the resistance that you feel to the idea that we are going to spend time in church talking about the subject of money and finances, I just want to let you know, first of all, that we do not exist as a church because we want your money. As a matter of fact, as a church, we don’t want your money.

And we are not doing this series with the goal of guilting you into giving money to the building campaign. Instead, our hope and our prayer as we go through this series is that God would move in our heads, our hearts, and our hands in a way that results in us embracing some timeless truths and principles when it comes to money that will enable us to live our day to day lives in a way that reveals and reflects Jesus head, heart, and hands when it came to the issue of money and finances.

Or maybe you believe that we should not spend our time in a sermon series talking about money because you came to church to hear about what Jesus and the Bible has to say about important spiritual issues like forgiveness, like faith, like prayer. You don’t go to church to be preached at about how you handle money; you go to church to hear about God.  You might be thinking “why should we even bother talking about treasure, about money, about finances. I mean, does it really matter how I handle my finances? Is how I handle my finances that big of a deal when it comes to my relationship with God? What does how I handle my finances have to do with whether or not I reveal and reflect Jesus to those around me?

I believe that how we handle our money and finances is a big deal. I believe that it is a big deal because of how Jesus talked about money. You see, Jesus talked about money and finances. As a matter of fact He talked about money a lot. In the accounts of Jesus life that are recorded for us in our Bibles, there are 500 verses where Jesus talked about prayer. Now we consider prayer an important part of our relationship with God. In addition, there are 500 verses where Jesus talked about faith. And every Sunday morning, at some point, the word faith is mentioned on this campus.

How many verses do you think are recorded for us in the accounts of Jesus life in the Bible that Jesus devoted to teaching on the subject of money and finances? 50? 100? 250? What if I told you that the number was 2,350? Jesus devoted 2,350 verses to the subject of treasure, to money, and how we handle it. Jesus thought that the subject of money and what we did with it was so important that He talked about money almost 5 times more than He did prayer and faith.

But why did Jesus talk so much about money? This week, I would like for us to spend our time together looking at a part of perhaps the most famous sermon that Jesus ever preached. And it is in this part of this famous sermon that we see Jesus reveal for us the reason why how we handle our treasure is a big deal when it comes to our relationship with Jesus.

And it is in this event from history that we will also discover a timeless principle about how the way that we handle our treasure impacts how our day to day lives reveal and reflect Jesus to those around us. So let’s look at this section of Jesus famous sermon together, beginning in Matthew 6:19-20:

"Do not 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 do not break in or steal;

As Matthew brings us into this section of perhaps one of Jesus most famous sermons, which we call the Sermon on the Mount, we find Jesus focusing for a second time in this sermon on the issue of money. Matthew tells us that Jesus proclaimed to the crowds that they are not to store up for themselves treasures on earth.

Now it is important to understand that this was not a suggestion; Jesus here is giving a command that we are not to be storing up treasures on earth. This phrase conveys the sense of storing up so as to accumulate something. The point that Jesus is making here is that we are not to be focused on the accumulation of treasure. Jesus is commanding the crowds listening, and followers of Jesus throughout history, not to center our lives on money, possessions and the treasures of this world. Jesus uses a play on words that literally means do not treasure treasure.

Now a natural question that could arise at this point is “Why not? Why not treasure treasure?” Jesus gives us the answer to this question in the second part of verse 19 by talking about moths and rust destroying and thieves breaking in and stealing. Jesus here uses the examples of moths and thieves to reveal for us the reality that when we store up treasure here on earth, we are storing up what is temporary.

The timeless reality is that we are only here on earth for a finite period of time and, when our time on earth is over, all of our stuff stays here on earth. The timeless reality is that you never really own anything. You only manage God’s stuff for a period of time and then He gives it to someone else.

But not only are treasures on earth temporary, Jesus here is also revealing for us the reality that treasures on earth are easily consumed by the things of the world. Just as a moth consumes cloth or rust consumes metal, or a thief consumes our money, possessions, and treasure by stealing, the things of this world are consumed by the world.

Instead of focusing on the accumulation of money, possessions, and treasure on earth, Jesus commanded the crowds listening, and followers of Jesus throughout history, to store up, to accumulate for ourselves treasure in Heaven. Instead of focusing on making deposits in our earthly bank accounts and retirement funds in a way that is focused on building a kingdom of money, possessions, and treasure here on earth for ourselves, Jesus commands us to make deposits in our heavenly bank accounts.

Jesus points out that when we accumulate treasures in Heaven; when we make deposits into our heavenly bank accounts, those investments cannot be consumed by the things on earth. Jesus point here is that while treasure on earth is temporary, treasure in Heaven lasts for eternity. But why is Jesus coming on so strong? Why does Jesus feel so strongly that He would command us to store up for ourselves treasure in Heaven?

Tomorrow, we will discover the answer to this question…