November 2007 “Getting More”
Stewardship Series – “The Treasure Principle”
Matthew 13:44
Sermon preached at Curwensville Presbyterian Church – November 25, 2007
Prayer Introduction: This morning is officially our Stewardship Kick-Off Sunday at the conclusion of a series of sermons not on giving more, but on getting more time, talents and money.
We looked at
Getting More: Talents from
We then
looked at Getting More: Time from
Last week we
saw the call to give thanks in all circumstances from
This morning
we will talk about Getting More: Money. We will start with
READ
I. Buried Treasure
It’s just one verse, and it’s a parable, so you have to use your imagination a bit with the logistics. But imagine a first century Hebrew walking on a hot afternoon with staff in hand. He takes a shortcut through a field and his staff hits something buried in the ground. He drops to his knees and starts digging. A couple of moments later he’s uncovered it – a box hidden for decades. He pries off the rusty lock and opens it. “Gold coins! Jewelry! Precious stones of every color! In that time period there were no banks, and people would sometimes bury their treasure to keep it safe. This one was left behind by someone who apparently died, with no heirs.
The traveler closes the lid and buries the chest of gold and marks the spot. He couldn’t just take it – that would be stealing. But how can he afford to buy the land. He thinks, “I’ll sell my farm…and crops…all my tools…my prize oxen. Yes, if I sell everything, that should be enough.”
We can’t know the particulars of the situation. Jesus doesn’t give us any in this parable. There was no impropriety. Jesus is simply trying to make a point, to teach a principle – the treasure principle.
Jesus talked about money and possessions quite a bit. In fact, more than 15% of everything Christ said relates to this topic – that’s more than he said about heaven and hell combined!
Erwin Lutzer has said, “Money is emphasized in Scripture simply because our temptation to love it is inexplicably powerful.” In the words of the Apostle Paul, “The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil” (1 Timothy 6:10a).
II. Our Money & Our Soul
There is a fundamental connection between our spiritual lives and how we handle money. There’s an old Jewish Proverb that says, “If you want to know what a man is really like, take notice how he acts when he loses money.”
John the Baptist also shows this connection when he tells the gathered crowd, “Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.” And three different groups ask him how to bear the fruit of repentance. He tells the first to share clothes and food with the poor. He tells the tax collectors not to pocket extra money. He tells the soldiers to be content with their wages and not extort money.
Each answer related to money and possessions, but no one had asked John about that. They were asking about demonstrating the fruit of spiritual transformation. Our handling of money and possessions is a major indicator of our spiritual condition.
Remember Zacchaeus, “the wee little man.” After his encounter with Jesus he said, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.” And how did Jesus respond, “Today, salvation has come to this house” (Luke 19:8-9). The transformation of Zacchaeus’ heart was demonstrated in his new approach to money.
Some other
examples. Converts in Jerusalem sold their possessions and gave to the needy
(cf.
And we all remember the poor widow who gave two small coins. Jesus praised her, “She, out of her poverty, put in everything – all she had to live on” (Mark 12:44b).
On the other hand, there was the rich man who planned to build bigger barns for himself to store up more wealth for himself. God called the man a fool saying, “This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself!” (Luke 12:20).
Erwin Lutzer said, “God will not merely judge us on the basis of what we gave but also on the basis of what we did with what we kept for ourselves.”
Perhaps the most well-known example is the rich young ruler who asked Jesus how to gain eternal life. Jesus, knowing that money and possessions were the man’s god said, “Sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me. When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth” (Matthew 19:21-22).
III. Earthly Treasure
The rich young ruler was unwilling to give up everything for a greater treasurer. But remember the poor old traveler’s discovery cost him everything. And you say, “Well sure, but he was going to gain great riches with the buried treasure.
But Jesus wasn’t talking about a worldly buried treasure, he was talking about the heavenly treasure. The parable in our passage begins with those words, “The kingdom of heaven is like…”
Which treasure do we view of greater worth?
In
During the time of Jesus, there lived a man named Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 B.C. – 65 A.D.) who wrote, “Money has never yet made anyone rich.”
Our natural heart is focused on an earthly treasure that cannot last.
I vividly remember one Christmas when I was maybe 8 years old. And I wanted a slot race car track. I had seen them in commercials. I had seen them in the big Sears Christmas catalog. I could imagine racing those cars around that figure 8 track. Christmas came, and there it was. Pure pleasure as I raced those cars around the track. For about an hour – and then the motors were burned out on the cars. The present didn’t even last the day.
Jen and I have bought two new cars in our 14 years of marriage. One when we sold our two old cars and bought a new one in moving to Florida; and the other when we moved here with our growing family and bought the mini-van. Within a month of buying both of those cars there was a significant dent put in the door by someone else in a parking lot.
Think about all of the earthly things we lust after. None of them last. Especially in today’s world – in which things are not built to last; but built to be replaced in a couple of years.
Why in the world are we so consumed with consumption? Because our natural heart desires the things of the world.
Jesus is calling on us to realize the foolishness of earthly investments and switch instead to heavenly investments that have eternal value, insured by God himself. Randy Alcorn writes, “According to Jesus, storing up earthly treasure isn’t simply wrong. It’s just plain stupid.”
III. Heavenly Treasure
But don’t miss the point. We’re talking about getting more. Remember Jesus says, “Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven.” Jesus wants us to store up treasure. He commands us to store up treasure. He simply calls us to check our hearts first. The traveler sold all he had IN JOY to buy the heavenly treasure.
After the encounter with the rich young ruler Jesus tells the crowd that those who sacrifice on earth “will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life” (Matthew 19:29). 100 times – that’s a 10,000% return.
You know what they say, “You’ll never see a hearse pulling a U-Haul; because you can’t take it with you.”
When John D. Rockefeller died, someone asked his accountant, “How much money did Rockefeller leave?” The reply was classic, “He left all of it.”
So here is The Treasure Principle (a la Randy Alcorn), “You can’t take it with you – but you can send it on ahead.”
Anything we try to hang onto here will be lost; but everything we put into God’s hands will be ours for eternity.
Don’t ask how your investment will pay off in 30 years; but how will it pay off in 30 million years!”
Suppose I offer you $1,000 today to spend however you want or you can have $10 million 5 years from now. Only a fool would take the one grand now. But that’s what we do when we grab onto those things that will only last for a moment instead of pursuing that which has eternal value.
IV. Immediate Returns
You have to understand the principle in order to apply the principle. And applying the principle will have immediate returns for getting more money now. The change of heart, becomes a change of focus – on heavenly treasures, not earthly treasures – and you begin to handle money differently.
As one person put it: “To get money is difficult, to keep it more difficult, but to spend it wisely most difficult of all.” Spending wisely is an issue of sanctification. We need to bring our spending to the cross of Christ and change the way we spend.
I saw this lived out during my seminary years by my best friend, who had such a great heavenly focus over earthly focus. He talked about buying coffee a couple days of week from the equivalence of our Sheetz. And he realized that he was spending about $5 a week on coffee. And he did the math. 52 weeks x 5 = $260. I don’t want to pay $260 for coffee. He said if I just bought coffee once a week instead of 5 days I would have an extra $200.
I talked to another family who realized they were going out to eat to the tune of $25 (or more) – 4 days a week. That’s $100/week. Do the math. $5200 a year spent on going out to eat. If they went out still once a week, but ate a more modest meal at home (factoring in grocery bills, etc.) would mean having $3000 more.
When Jen and I graduated from Seminary with student loans, we started reading about how to get out of debt. Because paying interest (especially some of the high interest loans you can so easily accumulate) are absolute killers. We took great encouragement in reading the extreme measures people took to get out of debt.
Our favorite story was a couple who had found themselves in extreme debt. Convicted by the Holy Spirit that they needed to get out of debt, they sold their earthly possessions and got CDL licenses. They “drove truck” together (living in the truck) for a couple of years and paid off all their debt and began saving money.
Suddenly I realized I could cut the extras in my life. Did I really need 100 channels of cable TV? Did I really need to go out to eat? Did I really need to drink coke? Did I really need all those earthly, temporary things that I lusted after – and wanted to buy?
We changed our spending habits significantly – based on the principle, “You can’t take it with you – but you can send it on ahead.”
Soon we had more money, which we used to pay off our loans ahead of schedule. And when you get out of debt, then you really have more money.
There are all kinds of resources to help spend wisely. But you’ve got to want it first. May the love of Christ change our focus from earthly treasures to heavenly treasures.
MAY THE TRUTH SET YOU FREE – AMEN!