36 Why You Can't Serve Two Masters (Matthew 6:19-24)

Krisan Marotta: Welcome to Wednesday in the Word. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is my podcast about what the Bible means and how we know. This is the 36th talk in my series on the Gospel of Matthew. Today we're gonna study Matthew chapter 6, verses 19 through 24. You'll find lecture notes with an outline of the main points on our website. You can click on the link below this podcast or go to wednesdayintheword.com slash Matthew 3.6. You can find all previous episodes in this series on wednesdayintheword.com and many other series and Bible study resources. Thanks so much for listening. We're continuing in the third major section of the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew's Gospel, and let me, as always, review the context. As I understand it, the Sermon on the Mount has been about one main topic, and Jesus has described that topic in a variety of ways from various angles. But the basic question is who will be accepted by God? In the first section, the Beatitudes, Jesus told us who the blessed or fortunate ones are who will receive the reward of a place in the kingdom of God. The Beatitudes tell us the qualities of saving faith that a person must have to inherit a place in the kingdom of God. And we could summarize them by saying, Blessed are those whose righteousness has these sorts of qualities, because their reward is the kingdom of heaven. Now that's not the language Jesus used, but we could make his same point using that language. In the next section, the antithesis, Jesus said, Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. In other words, if you want to receive the reward of entering the kingdom of heaven, your righteousness must be different than the kind of righteousness the Pharisees have. You must seek God in a different way than the Pharisees seek him if you want to enter the kingdom of heaven, and he gave several examples of what he meant by that. In this third section, Jesus is coming at this same question of who will be saved or who will enter the kingdom of heaven from a new angle. He began this section in Matthew six one by saying, Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. And then he gave examples of how the hypocrites perform their religious practices, and in each case he says, Truly I say to you, they've received their reward in full, they are looking for the approval of their peers, they are looking for the rewards of this world, and they already have those. In this third section, then Jesus is challenging those who are worldly, and by worldly I don't mean materialistic, I mean being too concerned, too focused on the things of this world. He describes the hypocrites, how they practice their religion, that they are looking for the rewards of this world. They want the approval of their peers, and that's the reward they're going to get. However religious they look like they are on the outside, on the inside they want the rewards of this world and not the rewards God has promised in the next. And he is still on this issue of worldliness among religious people. So let me read Matthew six verses nineteen through twenty four. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The eye is the lamp of the body, so if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, 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? 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. We have three distinct metaphors here treasures on earth versus treasures in heaven, the eye being the lamp of the body, and then no one can serve two masters. And these three ideas are related. We're going to look at each one of them in turn and then talk about the picture that they paint together. So let's go back to the first one, Matthew six, nineteen through twenty one. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The word treasure is a very religious sounding word. It's not a word we use often in daily conversation, but the concept is really important to every single human being. Every human being is looking for things that will make life good. We want security, we want health, we want love and happiness, we want to feel needed and necessary, we want rest, we want pleasure, and I could go on and on. Our treasure is everything that we keep, everything that we cling to and hoard and count on to bring goodness into our lives. We don't want to let it go. We want to hoard it, we want to keep it because these are the things that will bring goodness and value into our lives. Now that desire is not a bad thing. Wanting a good life is a very basic human need. It's inevitable. We are all, all of us going to seek for that which brings goodness into our lives, and that is our treasure. I think Jesus has much more in mind here than just wealth and a big bank account. I think he's got in mind everything that we seek and hold on to in this life. So wealth is included, but wealth brings a whole bunch of stuff with it. People tend to like rich people, so riches can bring friends, riches can bring pleasure, wealth can bring the approval of your peers, it can bring a security and a safety net. It can bring a feeling of accomplishment. Look what I've done, look who I am. Wealth is a part of the picture, but the treasure Jesus is talking about is more than gold and silver. I think it also includes all the good things that this world has to offer, and some of that money buys. One reason we like money so much is because of all the other good stuff that comes along with it. But our treasure is more than wealth, it is wealth plus everything that we keep and cling to and count on to bring goodness into our lives. And the question on the table then is are we going to choose our treasure wisely or foolishly? What sort of treasure should we be looking for? Well, the first issue that Jesus raises is reliability. Are you looking for a treasure that you can keep? If your treasure is something that you cannot keep, especially when there's another treasure you could choose that you cannot lose, then you're making a foolish choice. Jesus uses a very poetic and symmetrical contrast here. Let me read six nineteen and twenty again. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. The contrast he's making is between a treasure you cannot keep and a treasure you cannot lose. Moths and rust and thieves represent the fundamental problem of the treasures of this world, and that problem is you can't keep 'em. They go away. They're stolen, they're broken, or they're destroyed. And Jesus doesn't mention the biggest thief of all, which is death, but I think that's very much in the background of what he's saying. Death is the moth that eats everything, the rust that corrupts everything, and the thief that steals everything we have. We cannot keep the treasures of this world even for long in this world, and ultimately we will lose everything we have to death. The Old Testament explored this point often. We could look at a number of passages that make the point of the futility of relying on riches. Probably the most well known is the book of Ecclesiastes. Over and over again in that book Solomon speaks of vanity and chasing after the wind. We try to hoard various sorts of good things in this life, but in the end they go away. We lose them, and all we have left is a handful of air, as if I had gone chasing after the wind and come up with nothing. Jesus is taking this one step further, he's very forcefully reminding us that there is an alternative. There is a treasure that does not decay or corrode and cannot be stolen. It is that treasure that we store up in heaven. So we know a treasure is. What does it mean to store up treasure in heaven? The picture is not that we die, we go to heaven and we receive some kind of treasure chest. Our treasure is not stored in some kind of heavenly bank vault such that when we die we go to this place and we get our big account number or something. The biblical picture is that we receive this treasure when Jesus returns. Jesus comes again, he resurrects his people to eternal life and we join him in his kingdom. The treasure we should truly want is resurrected eternal life in the kingdom of heaven. Peter put it this way, this is first Peter chapter one verse thirteen. Therefore, preparing your minds for action and being sober minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Notice he didn't say fix your hope completely on what you will receive when you die and go to heaven. I think it's kind of interesting he didn't put it that way. Rather, he said fix your hope on what you will receive when Jesus returns, when he is revealed in glory. To store up treasure in heaven doesn't mean that we put treasure in a heavenly bank account so that when we die we have access to it. Rather, we entrust our lives and our hopes and our resources to God. We know that we will lose any treasure we gather in this world, and therefore we entrust the treasure we truly want to God. Instead of investing our lives in the things of this world, we invest our lives in the promises of God. We count on and hope for the things that God has promised, the things that God has in store for his people, and then when Jesus returns, he will bring our treasure with him. So we fix our hope, we fix our goal, we set our hearts on the things that God has promised in the future concerning his Messiah and the establishment of his kingdom. Everything that we prayed for in the Lord's Prayer, we fix our hope on the holiness that God will bring to this world and to his people. So that's Jesus' first point. Store up the treasure that endures, that doesn't go away, the only one that you cannot lose. Then he gives a second reason why we should store up treasure in heaven and not on earth. This is Matthew 6 21, and I think this takes a little thinking about. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. This warning is particularly important for the Pharisees. Jesus has called them hypocrites. They claim that their hearts are set on God, but their lives and their actions show that their hearts are set on this world. To them, the most important thing is to be admired by their peers, to be treated like important people, to have financial security and so forth. But Jesus says, Look, it doesn't work that way. You can't tell me that your heart is set on the things of God. When your actions say you want the things of this world, if what you most care about is what this earth can give you, then you're wrong, you're deceiving yourself about your heart being with God. Your heart is with your treasure here on earth. That's the thing you're seeking, that's the thing you're counting on. To give your heart to God includes believing that His treasure is better than the world's treasure. We can see then that to choose the right treasure requires understanding. You have to be able to look at the treasures of this world and recognize that they are nothing in comparison to the promises of God. You have to be able to see what is really true and what is a lie. What is really true about what this world has to offer? What is really true about what God has promised and which one is the most valuable? If you lack understanding, if you can't evaluate things wisely, then you will end up giving your heart to the wrong treasure, and this is why Jesus goes on to make his next point. Let's look at verses twenty two and twenty three. The eye is the lamp of the body, so if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light. 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? At first this statement may seem difficult to understand. Your eye is a lamp that fills your body with light, but the light in you is darkness. How does that make sense? What exactly does that mean? And if you go hunting, scholars and Bible students have written a lot about these two verses. They explore a whole lot of questions like contrasting the Greek versus the Hebrew theory of vision. What exactly does the word translated healthy mean? You can really get into the weeds on this verse, and you can spend a lot of time reading about what each little word and phrase means. In the end though, these verses don't seem that complicated to me. Maybe I'm missing something here, but there seems to be a straightforward reading in the context that I think makes the most sense, and I think it is a profoundly important point. Close your eyes. You're in darkness. You can't see anything, you've lost access to the world around you. Now you can still hear and feel things, but fundamentally you're in the dark. You are locked in yourself and you can't see the things outside of you. Now open your eyes. All of the sudden light comes flooding in. You are no longer shut off from the world around you. You can see and look around. Your eye is like a lamp because your eye is the part of your body that brings the light to you. The eye is like a window that lets the light into your house. There's a lot of similarity between those metaphors of a lamp and a window. Both of them bring light in so that you can see. Significantly here, this light is the light that helps me understand the world out there. Part of the point of having light and having eyes is so that I can understand and navigate through this world. I can avoid bumping into things, I can learn from your facial expressions, I can see colors and patterns and so forth. If something is wrong with your eyes, if you're blind so that when you open your eyes the light can't break through, well then you're trapped in darkness. You can't understand the world around you in the same way. Now obviously this is a metaphor. Jesus is not interested in physical light and physical blindness, he's speaking metaphorically. As is often the case, I think the image of light here is the image of understanding. Light brings me knowledge. Light brings me information. Light gives me understanding of the world around me. That's what light is meant to do. But what if the light doesn't do that? What if you think you have understanding, but you don't? What if you open your eyes, you think you understand, you think you know what you're looking at, you think you're evaluating all these treasures out there accurately, but in fact you're wrong. What then? You have your eyes open, the physical light is coming in, but you're still in the dark because you don't understand what you're looking at. And Jesus says that's a terrible place to be. You think you're seeing, but in fact you're blind. I think that's behind what he means when he says if the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness? If your eyes are open and you're looking around and you're seeing, but you don't understand what you're looking at, that is, you're in darkness, how great is that darkness? At least when your eyes were closed, you could open them and then light would come in and you might see. But if you think you're seeing, but you're not understanding it right, what option do you have? The physically blind person says, I have no light, I cannot see, I need help because I can't see what's in front of me. But the blind fool says, I can see clearly, but in reality he doesn't see anything. He doesn't understand what he's looking at, and he can't really see at all. It's unfortunate to be blind, but it is infinitely worse to be blind, but think that you're seeing perfectly. That's a very graphic picture of a very profound truth. Think about all the admonitions in Scripture to believe, to stand firm, to wake up and to have faith. There are many, many places where we're told to be alert, to wake up. Knowledge is not passive. Knowledge does not just happen to us. We have to be willing to believe. Or to be more specific, our knowledge is dependent on our will. Information comes to us all day long. We get all kinds of information, but how we understand that information depends in part on what we want to be true. Some things we will accept as true and other things we will reject. And if you don't believe me, just compare two different news sources, one liberal and one conservative. They will look at the exact same facts and reach very different conclusions based on what they're willing to believe is true, or to use the modern phrase, based on what fits their narrative. The Pharisees were very religious men who believed in God, but their religious understanding was shaped by their metaphorical eye, by what they wanted to believe was true. Ultimately, they wanted the treasures of this world, so their religious lives reflected that desire. They read the scriptures to reflect that desire. They thought they were seeing clearly, but in fact they were choosing what is temporary over what is eternal. The light that is in them, the understanding that they thought they had was in fact darkness. How great is that darkness? Jesus is drawing on very well known imagery from the Old Testament here. One famous passage is from Isaiah six nine. This is from Isaiah's call to be a prophet. I'm going to start reading in six eight. And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send and who will go for us? Then I said, Here I am, send me. And he said, Go and say to this people, keep on hearing, but do not understand, keep on seeing, but do not perceive. Make the heart of this people dull and their ears heavy and blind their eyes, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts and turn and be healed. Now Jesus is using that same kind of imagery. Some people will look with their eyes, but they don't really see. Some people will hear with their ears, but they don't really understand. Why do they see and hear without understanding? Well their metaphorical eye, their metaphorical ear, they're not healthy. They're not clear. They don't see and understand because of the Kinds of people that they are, because of what they want to be true, they will not see what is right in front of them. I suspect that Jesus has Isaiah's language in mind as he speaks this metaphor, and he's probably also influenced by Proverbs twenty eight twenty two. I'm going to read the NASB version because it's a little more clear. A man with an evil eye hastens after wealth and does not know that want will come upon him. Now that's very similar to our section in Matthew. The man's eye is bad, it's evil, so it hastens after wealth. Jesus uses the same phrase in Matthew 623, talking about the eye is bad. It that word bad in Matthew could be translated evil. The person whose vision has been distorted by his evil eye doesn't recognize that wealth is fleeting. He doesn't see wealth for what it really is, and he doesn't realize that ultimately he will lose that wealth and need or want will come upon him. Well that's the same point Jesus is making in Matthew 6. Jesus uses this same image in a number of places. In John 9, Jesus heals a blind man who then gets grief from the leaders of the synagogue because they don't want him telling people that Jesus healed him. Ultimately the leaders cast the formerly blind man out of the synagogue. And after hearing of this turn of events, Jesus says in John nine verses thirty nine through forty one, Jesus said, For judgment I came into this world that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind. Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things and said to him, Are we also blind? Jesus said to them, If you were blind you would have no guilt, but now you say we see, your guilt remains. Now that's a very interesting little discussion, but I think seeing here is understanding, and Jesus starts with one of these classic inversion statements for judgment I came into the world that those who are blind may see, and those whom see may become blind. And then he tells the Pharisees, If you were blind you would have no sin, but you claim to see clearly, so your sin remains. I think part of what's going on here he's saying if the Pharisees had admitted that they don't understand, that they don't see clearly, that they aren't seeing properly, and asked for Jesus to teach them, then they would have no guilt. But instead, they claim to see and understand everything perfectly clearly. They claim to understand perfectly what's going on, that's why they kicked this guy out of the synagogue. He's associating with you, Jesus, and we know you were a heretic, so we see we understand perfectly. They have looked and think they have understood what they're looking at, but Jesus says you aren't seeing at all. You don't see at all, your sin remains. You are stubbornly holding on to your ignorance. You don't get it, and you won't let go of your ignorance. You see, and yet you do not see. You think you see, but you're blind. And of course there's the phrase that Jesus uses often in the gospels, he who has ears let him hear, and he who has eyes let him see. Jesus describes the people of God as those who have the eyes to see and the ears to hear. The people of God have metaphorically clean and healthy eyes, such that when they look, they see and they understand. When they hear, they recognize the truth. They look at Jesus and say, He speaks the truth. They look at the promises of God and say that is what I most truly need. They look at the riches of the world around them and say, Hm that's just shifting sand, that's not gonna last. It's not nearly as good as what God is offering. So those are eyes that can see and understand. And that brings us to the third metaphor in this passage Matthew six twenty four. 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. Now your translation might have you cannot serve God and mammon. Mammon is just the Aramaic word for wealth. Some people leave it untranslated, but he's just saying wealth or money. So let's start by asking in what sense can wealth be our master and how can we be its servants? This is a metaphor of some kind. Wealth is not a person. Wealth cannot give us commands or instructions. Unlike God, who is a person, he can command us and we would do well to follow what he says. That one makes sense, but in what sense is wealth our master? Well think about the reality of the lives of servants at the time of Jesus. Things go well for servants who do what their master wants. Servants who thwart the will of their masters receive punishment. Servants who do the will of their masters receive good treatment. In this world, wealth behaves like a master. Wealth has its rewards and wealth has its punishments. In this world, if you want to be blessed by wealth, if you want wealth to metaphorically treat you well, you have to play by its rules. Now, I don't think I need to spell all those rules out for you. They run the gamut, wealth takes time, wealth requires sacrifices to climb the corporate ladder, wealth requires kissing up to the right bosses and backstabbing others, and so forth. In that sense, God also has his quote rules, unquote. He has ways he would like us to act, like love your neighbor as yourself, and love God with your whole heart. We must trust him to keep his promises, we must conduct our lives in the way that he has said is right, and act with kindness, generosity, love and charity, and so forth. To be blessed by our master, then we have to serve him well. We have to do what he requires of us. The pursuit of wealth requires certain kinds of things, and the pursuit of God requires other things. So that brings us to the second question, well why can't we serve two masters? Why can't we serve both God and wealth? As is often pointed out, many people have two part-time jobs, and that's not necessarily a problem. There are many ways and circumstances where you can hold down two jobs and thus have two masters and there's no problem. But let's consider an example where someone works part-time for the government and part-time in the private sector. Well, that's not necessarily a problem. You can serve two masters in that situation, and it doesn't have to be any big deal. One employer wants one thing over here and the other employer wants something different over there. But sometimes there's a conflict of interest. What if in your government job you set the regulations and requirements for those who operate a winery? And in your private sector job you run a winery. Well now you have a conflict of interest. You can't serve both of those masters. Eventually you're going to run into a case where you have to make a decision that will harm one and help the other. That's the concept behind hating one master and loving the other. I don't think Jesus is really concerned with how you feel about each master, rather how you treat them. Eventually you have to choose. Eventually you will have to harm one, that is hate them, and help the other, that is love them. And this image of hate and love is asking the question, are you working for them or against them? As we've seen when we've talked about loving our neighbors, the idea is how we act, how we treat them, how we work for their good or we work against them. It's the same idea here. Hating the one and loving the other is a way of saying you can't keep both of them happy. You can't do what both of them want. You're going to end up thwarting one in order to accomplish what the other one wants. Eventually you're going to have to make a choice. Again, the point is not about the passion of your devotion to them or how you feel. The point is about how you treat them. You can't treat both of them the way they want to be treated because eventually they're going to be an opposition. Sooner or later there will be a conflict of interest between gathering wealth and serving God. Now let me be clear, there is nothing wrong with working for a living. In Thessalonians, Paul insists that people work for a living. Working and being self-reliant is a good thing. But true believers are learning to value the will of God and the promises of God more than they value the treasures of this world. Sooner or later you'll face a situation where you must choose. Holding on to the promises of God will mean letting go of the things of this world. Sooner or later you're going to have to face a choice about how you will relate to the riches of this world. That's the problem with the Pharisees. They talk about the will of God, but they have their hearts set on the riches of this world, not just money, but all the good things this world can give them. They talk about the importance of obeying God's law, but if you look at how they live their lives, they seem much more interested on what they can get away with. They do whatever it takes to prosper in this world. So given a choice between serving God and prospering in this world, they're going to choose the world every time. Now let me try to put all this together. Jesus has given us three metaphors, the treasures of the earth versus treasures of heaven. The eye is the lamp of the body and not serving two masters. And we're still in this section about not having the kind of righteousness that the Pharisees have. The Pharisees were very religious people. They talked about doing the will of God a lot, but they don't really have eyes to see. They are blinded by the riches of this world, and they have set their hearts on the things of this world. They have lost sight of the fact that the riches of this world will fail them, and they ignore the conflict of interest between seeking God and seeking the riches of this world. They think they don't have to choose. They have created a way of reading the law and understanding the will of God such that they can make a show of obeying the law while at the same time dodging its true requirements. And Jesus is warning his listeners to avoid following their example. If you want true blessing, you want to have healthy eyes that see clearly. You want to see and understand what is truly valuable. The true blessing is to remember and act on the fact that worldly riches will fail in the end. The true blessing is to follow God even when that conflicts with following the riches of this world. It's realizing I need what God has promised, and that's where I want to go. Now let me give you one final thought on this passage. Over the years I've encountered a number of Christians, especially younger believers, who will confess in a quiet moment that they aren't really looking forward to heaven. They tell me, you know, I hear all that stuff about the next life and the kingdom of God, and somehow it doesn't get me very excited. It doesn't mean that much to me, but you, Krassan, you seem to be suggesting that it ought to mean something to me. So I hear this a lot from young people. Why should I look forward to heaven? I'm in good health, I have a great marriage or maybe a great dating relationship, I'm excelling in my career, I'm at the top of my class, I have lots of friends, my children are healthy and cute and compliant, I have enough money to be comfortable. What's so great about heaven? Especially if I have to lose all these things, all the things I have now to get there. Well I'm not sure I have a perfect answer to that question, but let me give you a few thoughts. Why would you ever choose the treasures of heaven over the treasures of earth? First, because it can free you from the fear of failure. Modern American culture relishes almost every kind of freedom and independence except one, and that's the freedom to fail or to be a loser. And in modern America today, one bad tweet and you're canceled, no second chances allowed. So it raises this fear. What if my marriage fails? What if my kids turn out to be juvenile delinquents? What if I don't advance in my career? I don't get straight A's, or I get turned down by all the top rated colleges? What if I never make a name for myself? I never win a Grammy or an Oscar or publish a book, or I just never make enough money for a comfortable living, or I never find the right person to marry. Maybe you're one of those people who doesn't really have it all together, but you work really, really hard to create the image that you do. And so you live with the fear that someone might discover that you really don't have it altogether after all. Well, if you're that person, let me talk to you for a minute. For the person who has it all, including the fear of failure, the Christian gospel offers freedom from that fear. Because the Christian gospel claims that you are valuable in and of yourself. The Christian gospel claims that you are valuable quite apart from your income, your GPA, your resume, your family pedigree, your slim figure and gorgeous hair, your marital status or your parenting success. You are of value simply because you are made in God's image. According to the Christian gospel, God loves you, period. Whether you succeed or fail, whether you end up rich or poor, famous or unheard of, beautiful or plain, you are made in God's image and God loves you more than you imagine and more than you deserve. And that's one reason why the treasures in heaven are so valuable. They don't depend on your success or failure. Another reason is because your present life has meaning, meaning far beyond your college degree, your perfect household, your career, or your relationships. Actually, according to the Christian faith, you are made to have a personal relationship with Jesus through his Spirit dwelling in you. Your daily life is not just about you and the identity you shape for yourself. Your daily life is meant to be lived in a relationship with God who is sovereign over all of human history and, believe it or not, wants to be sovereign over your personal story. When you embrace the gospel and seek the treasures of heaven, your life story becomes anchored in this rich history, the history of God entering this life in the person of Jesus Christ in order to bless and redeem those who trust him. You're not a random Darwinian pot of atoms floating through a meaningless universe. You're just not. The Christian gospel teaches that you are a valuable creature made in God's image, and your life is tied to God's work in history, which is calling the people to himself. So should you embrace the gospel and start seeking the treasures of heaven, it frees you from this fear of failure, it gives your life real meaning, and third, your life will have a future. Jesus has promised that he will never leave or forsake his people, and he says he will bring them into eternal life with him in a place where there are no more tears, no more loss, no more mourning, no bitterness, no frustration, no failures, and no tragedy. When you embrace the gospel and seek the treasures of heaven, you join a community of people who follow Jesus. Now, it's true we're a flawed community, but we're also a place where we're honest about our failures, our brokenness, and our need for help. We tell the truth to God and each other about our strengths, our weaknesses. We celebrate, we have fun, we mourn losses, we share joys, we hurt each other, and we learn and we carry on. And we give second chances. We forgive each other when we fail. And this happens not because followers of Jesus deserve it, not because we're better than anyone else, not at all. This happens because of probably the most familiar verse in the Bible, because God so loved the world that he sent his only son that whoever believes in him could have eternal life. Now let me address those of you who maybe don't understand why the treasures of heaven are so important and you also don't live with a fear of failure. Maybe you really do have it altogether. You're not shadowed by fear or insecurity or doubt for you, the future looks great, and you have no idea why you need God or why you would want to forgo any pleasures of this world for the treasures of heaven, because in your eyes you're the captain of your fate and the master of your soul. If so far you really do have it all together and you really do have it made, I would say this to you just wait. For now you may have it all, but for everyone life has joys and life has tragedies. The day will come when you fail to obtain something you really want. It's highly unlikely that you can go through life and never lose a loved one to death, or that you'll never have to face a personal tragedy like divorce or getting fired or a health scare or a financial failure. Eventually everyone faces major disappointment. Maybe a friend will betray you or a relationship breaks up or you're involved in an accident. Something happens. Now, if you've escaped all those so far, the odds are that you won't escape them forever. Eventually everyone faces at least one major tragedy or crushing blow. And what do you do then? You need some kind of anchor. Some of you will probably turn to some kind of stoicism, like just suck it up, maintain a stiff upper lip, pretend you're okay and go on. Some of you might turn to alcohol and drugs and random sexual encounters. Some of you might bury yourself in your career or being super mom, but those are not really sources of comfort, those are diversions from the pain. They don't offer any lasting healing or comfort. How do you find lasting comfort, especially in the face of loss to death? For followers of Jesus, there's comfort in the promises of the gospel. We sorrow, but we have hope. When we embrace the promises of the gospel and seek the treasures of heaven, that gives us a very solid anchor for the storms of life. Another reason, and perhaps the most important reason to seek the treasures of heaven is because all your good looks, all your resume stars, all your brilliance and your success is not going to make you acceptable to God. God did not design you to live with you as the center of life. If you're the kind of person who savors your accomplishments, that's a form of pride, and the Bible counsels against pride big time. Pride and self-centeredness are detestable to God. God does not want us to worship ourselves. If you worship yourself, you will find yourself hard put to live up to your own demands and standards. People who think they don't need God are defined in the Bible as fools. The treasures of heaven solve the problem of sin. Sin is another one of those Bible words that we like to ignore. We'd much rather talk about God's love. But the fact is human beings are morally corrupt. It's just true. We don't need the Bible to tell us this fact. You can look out the window and figure that out. People are basically selfish. That's just empirically obvious. It is not hard to see the moral corruption in human beings. We do not treat each other as we should. We are evil, and in the end, God has every right to reject us because of it. That is just a rock solid truth of the universe. Why then is the coming kingdom of God so valuable? Because one day we will come to fully know and experience the love and acceptance of God. It will be clear for those who have followed Jesus that God has forgiven us. And accepted us. On that day, the evil that stains all of us will be gone. The evil that corrupts our world will be gone. We won't hurt each other anymore. We won't hurt ourselves anymore. Shame will be gone. We will make our lives an open book and not be ashamed of what anyone would read there. That's a gift worth more than all the treasures and pleasures of this world piled together. That's what makes the treasure in heaven so incredibly valuable, and nothing in this world can ever compare to it. For those who follow Jesus, we will fully know the love and acceptance of God. The ugly stain of evil will be gone forever, and this goodness that God has promised us will never end. What could be better than that? We can't lose it, we can't corrupt it, we can't break it, we can't destroy it, and no one can take it away. We are fundamentally designed to worship or to use Jesus' metaphor to serve a master. You will serve something or someone. It might be your career, your spouse, money, success, beauty, a political cause, but you will worship something. The God who created you wants you to worship Him and to love Him, and He wants to love you back. You see, Jesus is all about redeeming the lost. So you know what? Your sins are worse than you think, but you are loved by God more than you can imagine. So whether you're clinging to your pedigree or your resume or your beauty or your success in hopes of finding meaning, or if life has already hit you hard and you're desperately searching for an anchor to get you through the storm, the answer is right before you in the gospel. Everyone has secretly thought, I wish someone would love me for me. Everyone envies what someone else has. Everyone covets someone else's perfect spouse or beautiful body or above average children or career success. Everyone fears that they don't measure up to their neighbors. The good news of the Christian gospel is that God loves you not because you have it made, but because you were made for a relationship with Him. He knows you better than you know yourself, and He loves you anyway. You can't keep the treasures of this world and they won't solve your biggest problem. You can keep the treasures of heaven and they will solve your biggest problem. When you have the eyes to see, that's a very easy choice to make. Thank you for listening to Wednesday in the Word, the podcast that explains not only what a passage means, but also shows you how to figure it out. You can find all previous episodes in this series on my website, wednesdayintheword.com. There is no charge, no spam, and no ads. It is all free for you to improve your study skills and understanding of scripture. If you've been blessed by this podcast, please subscribe to the podcast, leave a positive rating or review wherever you listen, and most importantly, tell a friend what you learned and where you learned it. Our theme music is graciously provided by my friend and my favorite musician Reggie Coates. You can find all of his music on heartfeltmusic.org. Thank you for joining me today. I'm Krisan Marotta, and I'll see you next week at Wednesday in the Word.