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[0:00] Matthew chapter 6, verses 19-24, if you would stand with me as we honor the reading of God's word together.

[0:25] ! Jesus continues as he's preaching in the Sermon on the Mount, and he says, Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.

[0:38] 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.

[1:01] 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.

[1:16] You cannot serve God and money. May God add a blessing to the reading of his word. Would you please be seated? What makes a person rich?

[1:35] In Luke 18, Jesus meets a rich, young ruler. He possesses everything that people in this world would say, believe, make a person rich.

[1:54] He has everything people in this world believe makes a person happy. But he's not happy. He's troubled by a question that he seeks Jesus to answer.

[2:10] In Luke 18, 18-30, we read about his encounter with the Lord. It says, And a ruler asked him, Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?

[2:24] And Jesus said to him, Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments. Do not commit adultery. Do not murder. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness.

[2:35] Honor your father and mother. The rich young man said to him, All these things I have kept from my youth. When Jesus heard this, he said to him, One thing you still lack.

[2:50] Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. And come and follow me. But when he heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich.

[3:05] Jesus, seeing that he had become sad, said, How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God. For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.

[3:19] Those who heard it said, Then who can be saved? But he said, What is impossible with man is possible with God. And Peter said, See, we have left our homes and followed you.

[3:34] And he said to them, Truly I say to you, There is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God who will not receive many times more in this time and in the age to come eternal life.

[3:56] Jesus wasn't suggesting that rich people can't be saved. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Job, David, Solomon, and many other people in the Bible were as wealthy, if not wealthier than this rich young man.

[4:16] And they were saved. The difference is that their wealth was not their God. It was not what they truly treasured the most in their heart.

[4:28] When Jesus invited the rich young man to follow him, his refusal revealed that his faith wasn't really in God, but in his wealth. His earthly treasures was what he truly worshipped.

[4:41] Peter pointed out that he and the other disciples had done what Jesus demanded of the rich young ruler. And Jesus doesn't rebuke him for that, but he promises him, and he promises the rest of the disciples that they would receive a greater reward, a greater treasure, both in this life and in their eternal life.

[5:06] They would receive that because they placed their faith in Jesus. What makes a person rich? According to Jesus, true and lasting wealth does not come through possessing earthly treasures, but by possessing salvation through faith in him.

[5:29] Jesus said in Mark 8, 36 through 38, for what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul?

[5:42] For whoever is ashamed of me, in my words, in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.

[5:57] Jesus says that the things most people believe make them rich, truly make them poor. A person could spend their whole life chasing money and all the things that money can buy, they can have it all.

[6:17] But if they don't have Jesus, they don't have anything. They will have totally wasted their life. Do you believe that?

[6:31] Do you believe that? Jesus wants you to believe that. He doesn't want you to waste your life. He doesn't want you to forfeit your eternal soul for things that can't keep you secure, that can't save you, that can't purchase eternal life for you.

[6:53] In our text today, Jesus calls us all to evaluate our lives and to see what it is that we truly value.

[7:05] And so the main idea for this morning's sermon is that Jesus commands us to audit our lives and assess what we truly value. Jesus commands us to audit our lives and to assess what we truly value.

[7:22] And so to do that, we'll ask three questions as we go through this text to determine what we truly value. Why does this matter?

[7:35] Well, if you're an unbeliever here this morning or you're hearing this sermon, I'm sure that a person like the rich young ruler is probably who you're striving to become.

[7:49] You believe that money will solve your problems. That it will put an end to all of your debts and then you will be able to have a feeling of peace and security because money will buy those things for you, secure those things for you.

[8:12] And friend, if you believe that, you are in the right place because you owe a debt that the combined fortunes of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffett combined cannot repay.

[8:28] In fact, all of their wealth plus all of the wealth in the world could not repay the debt that you owe. It's a debt that you owe to God.

[8:42] It's a debt we all owe. It's a debt that only one can pay. God Himself. And He has paid it in His Son, through His Son, Jesus Christ.

[9:00] We read about that in Colossians 2, 13 through 14. The Apostle Paul is talking about people who were saved, who have been saved by the Lord. And He describes who they were before.

[9:12] And you were dead in your trespasses, in the uncircumcision of your heart, or the uncircumcision of your flesh. But God made alive together with Him for giving us all our trespasses by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.

[9:31] This He set aside, nailing it to the cross. And so I hope today that you will realize the debt that you have and that you will turn to Jesus to be saved from it.

[9:45] I hope that through faith in Jesus, you will know what truly makes a person rich. And that you'll stop wasting your life pursuing things that cannot save you and that will be absolutely worthless to you on the day you die.

[10:03] The moment you take your last breath on this earth. Christian, this matters for you. I trust that many of you this morning are saved. Your debt has been paid through your faith in Jesus.

[10:16] Praise God. You know that God has given His best for you. But I ask you, are you giving your best for Him? Are you using what God has given you to build His kingdom?

[10:31] Or are you using what He's given to you to build your own kingdom? Apostle Paul talked about this in 1 Corinthians 13, 11 through 15.

[10:42] For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold and silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw, each one's work will become manifest for the day when the Lord comes will disclose it because it will be revealed by fire.

[11:02] and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will be rewarded.

[11:13] If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. Christian, are you truly as invested as Jesus commands you to be?

[11:32] are you truly serving him with the redeemed life that he's given to you? Are you keeping for yourself what Jesus has commanded you to give?

[11:47] Are you trusting too much in money for a sense of security? Are you acting more like you are an owner than a steward?

[11:59] Are you striving for eternal reward that lasts? Or earthly things that we've just read will burn and will perish and will have been a waste of time?

[12:12] Today, through his word, the Holy Spirit is going to audit and assess our storehouses, and this is a good thing because God in his grace will help you discern if what you are laboring for now really matters when your life on this earth comes to an end.

[12:33] For all of us today, Jesus commands us to audit our lives and assess what we truly value. And so again, three questions from this text will help us determine what you truly value.

[12:49] They will help you know what truly makes a person rich. And so the first question that's going to help us audit and assess what we truly value is what do you treasure?

[13:03] What do you treasure? In the beginning of verse 19, Jesus says, do not lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven. In the Greek, do not lay up is a present imperative.

[13:17] An imperative is not a suggestion, it's a command. We could translate Jesus' words here like this, stop and don't stop stopping, laying up for yourselves treasures on earth.

[13:32] In the most emphatic way Jesus can, he says, stop it. Stop laying up for yourselves treasures on earth.

[13:46] What are these treasures? Well, treasures does refer to money, but not just money. This is an all-inclusive term that Jesus uses to describe all different kinds of things that we treasure or that we value.

[14:05] Jesus will go on to point that out in the rest of this verse, but before I continue, it's important for us to understand that Jesus is not commanding us to live a life of poverty.

[14:16] The Bible commands Christians to work and provide for themselves in 2 Thessalonians 3.10 to save money for their children, 2 Corinthians 2.14, and to work to provide for everyone in your household, 1 Timothy 5.8.

[14:34] Some Christians will be so skilled and blessed by God in business or in work that they will become very successful. And in that case, the Apostle Paul, the Bible gives us this instruction for them in 1 Timothy 6.17-19.

[14:49] As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, not to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God who richly provides us with everything to enjoy.

[15:01] They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.

[15:19] Working, being wealthy, and having things isn't wrong. The key to Jesus' warning in verse 19 is the word yourselves.

[15:34] When we accumulate possessions or treasures simply for our own sakes, whether we hoard those things or use those things to buy extravagant things that we hoard, those things can become idols.

[15:50] They can become possessions that end up having possession of us because we look to those things for our security and for our identity which are things that we should be looking to God only or truly for.

[16:05] Jesus says that trusting in earthly things for what only God can supply is an incredibly foolish way to live. And he made that point in a parable in Luke 12 verses 15 through 21.

[16:22] Jesus said, take care and be on your guard against all covetousness for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. And he told them a parable.

[16:34] The land of a rich man produced plentifully and he thought to himself, what shall I do? For I have nowhere to store my crops.

[16:46] And he said, I will do this. I will tear down my barns and build larger ones. And there I will store all my grain and my goods.

[16:59] And I will say to my soul, soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years. Relax, eat, drink, be merry.

[17:13] But God said to him, full, this night your soul is required of you and the things you have prepared.

[17:25] Whose will they be? And Jesus concludes, so is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich towards God.

[17:38] There are no U-Hauls behind hearses. That possession that you can't imagine living without or can't imagine living the rest of your life without will one day belong to someone else.

[17:54] And they're probably going to sell it. When you die, all of your possessions will be of no use to you. So why waste your life pursuing those things?

[18:11] In the rest of verse 19, Jesus explains what these treasures we are tempted to store up are and he explains in greater detail why it's a waste of time to live your life trying to store up these things.

[18:26] He says again, do not lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. In Jesus' time, most people wore the same clothes, the same outfit every day.

[18:42] They didn't have the ability that we have today to mass produce clothes at a cheap cost. Only the rich could afford to dress up.

[18:53] And they actually stored their wealth in their clothing. They would sew golden threads into their garments.

[19:06] It was a way for them both to show off their wealth and to preserve their wealth. But moths chew clothes.

[19:18] They chew little holes into clothes made of wool or silk or fur. Those annoying pesky little insects can ruin a very expensive piece of clothing.

[19:35] Like people back then, we value clothing today too in our culture, don't we? Last week, the baseball jersey that Babe Ruth wore in the 1932 World Series, I've talked about that before, I used it as an illustration when he famously supposedly called his shot to center field and then he hit a home run.

[19:58] That jersey that he wore went up for auction. Guess how much it sold for? $24 million.

[20:11] $24 million. can you imagine all the people that could have been helped by just a fraction of that $24 million?

[20:30] Why in the world would someone spend $24 million on a 100 year old jersey? We know the answer, don't we?

[20:42] To show off their wealth. That person is not going to wear that jersey, but they have it to show off just how wealthy they are.

[20:53] I can buy this, I can have this, and you can't. I hope if ever you have $24 million, that's not how you're going to spend it, but I'd imagine that you probably also have a desire to wear clothes that have all the name brands.

[21:15] I remember for me in high school, the big name brand was Abercrombie and Fitch. And I remember when I got a job, what I would do oftentimes is I would go and I would buy clothes at Abercrombie and Fitch.

[21:28] And I didn't really care what they looked like just as long as it said Abercrombie and Fitch. Because if you had the brand, that signaled something, didn't it? Look at me.

[21:39] I wear these clothes. I'm fashionable. I'm in style. I don't think anybody wears those clothes anymore. And I know all those clothes that I bought ended up going to a garage sale or being packed in a bag and sending to Goodwill and they probably aren't even worn today because that brand has gone out of style.

[21:59] But so often what we wear we wear because of the brand, because of what the brand symbolizes and we want to be associated with that. Now the Greek word translated as rust is brosis and it literally means in eating.

[22:16] In eating. Everywhere else that that word appears in the New Testament it's used in the context of food, not the corrosion of metal. So Jesus was talking about food that was eaten by vermin like rats and mice and worms and insects.

[22:39] People back then didn't have the ability to preserve food like we do today. And so a person with a lot of food, with a lot of grain was rich but that food as well as their expensive clothes could easily be destroyed.

[22:54] And destroyed that's the same word that could be translated as disappeared. It could easily disappear. Jesus could have used fire as an example.

[23:06] He could have used earthquakes or other natural disasters here. But instead he uses the example of pesky little vermin.

[23:17] Why do you think that he did that? Well I think it's because the point that he's trying to make is to emphasize just how vulnerable the earthly treasures that we value are.

[23:32] That these things that we value so much on can be easily destroyed by the smallest of things. Thieves not only do we have to worry about are they insects and these small things destroying the things that we value but other people.

[23:53] Jesus said thieves who break in and steal and then again there the Greek word literally for break in is a digging a digging in Jesus' time people didn't have banks like we have banks and so they would bury their treasure in the ground out in some field or maybe even in their house not only that but most people lived in houses that were made of mud and so thieves would dig through the wall take their valuable possessions the point that Jesus is making is that a person's home a person's hiding place is not really and truly secure now you might say well Pastor Mike we have mothballs for our clothes and we also have these things called refrigerators and freezers that preserve our food we also have security systems for our houses we do have banks that are safe places for our money true but the principle still remains you can't take any of those things with you and none of those things as secure as you think that they are are really or completely secure economies crash thieves are more sophisticated now than they have ever been nothing you own is truly safe from being taken from you

[25:31] Jesus makes the point that the only things that can never be taken away from us that have real and lasting value are things that can only be stored up in heaven and so he says stop wasting your time wasting your life storing up treasures on earth because they are vulnerable to being taken from you in a moment and you can't take them with you when you die stop doing that he says and then in the rest or in verse 20 he says now start doing this again another present imperative command start and don't stop what you've started keep on going with laying up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal Jesus says heavenly security is the only absolute security and in verse 21 he says for where your treasure is there your heart will be also what do you treasure the answer will determine where your heart truly is so let's audit the account of your life and find out what you truly treasure by asking some more questions what occupies your thoughts when you have nothing else to do what occupies your thoughts when you have nothing else to do is it money maybe it's the need for more money maybe it's how you can make more money is it a person or maybe it's a possession that could be what you truly treasure another way you can find out is what do you worry about what do you spend most of your time worrying about what do you fear most losing other than a loved one that could be what you truly treasure how about this how do you determine a person's worth do you determine a person's worth by what they wear or how successful they've been in business or how educated they are or by the size of their house or by the newness of their car or maybe even their athletic ability is that how you determine a person's worth what is it that you don't think you could live happily without and how you answer those questions will help you determine what it is that you truly value when

[28:22] Jesus fasted in the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights the devil tempted him with earthly treasures didn't he food fame fortune Satan brought his a game against Jesus Christ the son of God and he hasn't changed his playbook young people as you consider what you will do when you grow up how often have you sought God's will in that first have you ever prayed that God would make his will for your life clear to you and what you will do when you grow up adults are you are you trying to keep up with the Joneses well they have that we don't have that they have that I don't have that that makes me feel bad about myself so guess what we're getting that and we're probably going to get something better than them are you focused on your retirement more than you are on your eternal life are you concerned more about advancing the kingdom of

[29:35] God on this earth with your life or advancing your own career senior adults are you more concerned with keeping traditions of the past and preserving what you have accumulated than investing what God has given you to invest in the future of the church we all need to stop asking what can I do to get more and we need to start asking what can I give what more can I give and have God use that for what really matters both in this life and in the life to come so how can you acquire this heavenly treasure well Jesus has already told us some of those things in this sermon up to this point he's told us about the actions that result in heavenly reward in chapter 5 verse 11 in this sermon

[30:41] Jesus said that when you endure persecution for your faith in him when you suffer for being a Christian that you will have a great reward in heaven in chapter 5 verse 46 Jesus said that when you love your enemies there will be a reward for you in heaven in chapter 6 verse 4 verse 6 and verse 17 Jesus said that when you devote him without a desire for people to praise you that God will reward you for that when you give to advance his kingdom on this earth you will be rewarded with treasure in heaven and as I was thinking about this you know the person who came to my mind La Juana Brewer if on it but if you are on Facebook you should go read a post that her family shared letting everybody know that she had passed away and yesterday there was 250 comments and almost the same theme was what a blessing she was to me what a sweet lady she was to me what a godly example that she set for all of us she blessed a lot of people because she was obedient to serve

[32:15] Jesus and our dear sister is alive and she is awfully wealthy in heaven and we will see her again one day unbeliever you can have it all you can have it all all of it can belong to you but if you don't have Jesus you truly have nothing Matthew 13 44 Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field which a man found and covered up and then in his joy he goes and he sells everything that he has all of it and he goes and buys that field friend Jesus is that treasure and he's imploring you give it all up it will mean nothing to you when you face him and eternity awaits you it will have all been for nothing imagine that

[33:32] I had between my fingers a splinter of wood I hate getting splinters but imagine that in my hand is a splinter of wood and this splinter signifies all of your earthly existence 80 90 100 years now look up in the ceiling go ahead and look up you see all that wood all that wood can you imagine how many splinters it would take to make up all of that wood!

[33:59] all around us that's like but it goes on forever you're going to live for this splinter of wood and lose out on all of that for things of this world this earth that pass away that you can't take with you how foolish don't live your life for the splinter and miss out on all the rest what do you treasure now the second question is we audit and assess what we truly value what are you focused on what are you focused on in verse 22 through 23 Jesus says 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!

[34:57] If then the light in you is darkness eye is the lens through which we see that's obvious it sees light but what is less obvious is our English translations of this word which say healthy or the eye that is clear in the Greek the word is haplous and it literally means single single in the Bible light is used metaphorically to symbolize truth so the idea that Jesus is communicating to us here is a singular focus on what is true what is truth the Bible tells us Psalm 119 105 your word is a lamp to my feet in a light to my path Psalm 119 142 says your righteousness is righteous forever in your law your word is true

[36:00] John 114 says and the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we have seen his glory glory as the only son of the father full of grace and truth in John 14 6 Jesus declared I am the way and the truth and the life no one comes to the father except through me in John 17 17 Jesus prayed for his disciples for us for you and he said sanctify them in the truth your word is truth God is true his word is true Jesus the son of God the word of God is the truth and the source of truth he is the one who the healthy eye the clear eye the singularly focused eye is on in John 8 12 Jesus said I am the light of the world whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life when

[37:03] Jesus is your focus you see in the light you see things as they truly are and then you know the true value the true worth of things!

[37:45] fall fall to to show my parents how bad my vision was he told me to look out through the front glass windows of his office across the parking lot over to the next street and he said Michael do you see that tree with yellow leaves and I told him I don't see a tree at all so you know a week or two later my glasses come in he fits them on my face and I remember him talking about this tree and I looked out for the first time and I oh my goodness I see that tree when you see through the lens of scripture everything comes into focus friends knowing Jesus corrects your vision it changes your vision the things that you could not see before you now see you know

[38:51] I can see without my glasses but it's just a bunch of blurs and whenever I get up in the middle of the night and I don't put my it doesn't really help if I even have my glasses on but when I don't have them on it's even worse and I'm trying to grasp I've lived in this house for seven years I don't know where is that light switch I bump my head on things and it hurts everything is out of focus that is what life without Jesus is like grasping in the darkness the world is full of rich young people types young person student are you grasping to have a life like those people the rich the wealthy the famous think think about this do those people seem happy to you do they seem content oftentimes we hear about how how they get addicted to drugs how they can't stay married and all of the houses and all of the cars and all of the clothes are never enough they need more is that really what you want to be like is that truly how you want to live your life adults are you grasping for earthly treasures is

[40:33] Jesus truly the one whom you are focused on are you willing to have your status your position your bank account decreased if that's what it takes if that's what God calls you to do so that Jesus will increase in your life are you willing to spend the money that you've saved on vacation to go on a mission trip with your family instead or does that seem radical to you parents what if God calls your son or daughter into the mission field would that scare you would you discourage that do you think you own what God has made you a steward of are you focused on

[41:37] Jesus are you focused on the truth don't turn a blind eye to the truth Jesus is commanding you to see today but maybe you don't know what is truth or you doubt that there is such a thing friend you're in bad company Pilate asked Jesus the same question when truth was standing before his face in John 18 37 through 38 Pilate said to him so you are a king Jesus answered you say that I am a king for this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world to bear witness to the truth everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice and tragically Pilate said to him what is truth Pilate was afraid of what it would cost him to trust in

[42:39] Jesus he would lose his job he would lose his status he would lose his power but in rejecting Jesus he lost infinitely more don't be like him don't waste your life don't stay in the darkness when Jesus is calling you to the light he's calling you to the truth he's calling you to be saved now the third question as we continue to audit and assess what we truly value whom do you serve whom do you serve verse 24 Jesus says no one no one can serve two masters for he will either 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 what we all need to see here in verse 24 is

[43:44] Jesus implication that we all were made to have a master Jesus talked about this in John 8 31 through 35 he said to the Jews who had believed in him if you abide in my word you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free they answered him we are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone how is it that you say you will become free Jesus answered them truly truly I say to you everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin the slave does not remain in the house forever the son remains forever so if the son sets you free you will be free indeed God created human beings for worship and we will all end up worshiping something

[44:50] God created you to adore him to exalt him to rejoice in him to cling to him to trust in him to love him and to find your purpose and meaning for your existence in him and only Jesus can set you free from slavery to sin and in setting you free from sin he makes you his you become his servant he is the lord!

[45:31] of your life! What kind of lord is Jesus? What kind of master is Jesus? Is he a master worth following?

[45:44] Is he a master worth serving? Look at Philippians 2 5 through 11 have this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus who though he was in the form of God did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped but he emptied himself by taking the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form this lord this master humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death even death on a cross therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name so that the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father friend one way or another your knee will bow to

[46:47] Jesus and it will either be in acknowledgement that you were wrong for having rejected him or you will bow and worship with him and enjoy what you have anticipated for so long has finally come the last scene in the movie Saving Private Ryan now this movie has been out for a long time so sorry if this spoils the movie for you but if you remember Private Ryan his sons had died in World War II he was the last survivor of his family and so a group of soldiers are commissioned to go and find him and to rescue him to bring him back home so that his mother would not lose all of her sons and if you remember they find him and each one of those men ends up dying to save his life but they save his life he's back home and at the end of the movie he's an old man and he's walking through the graveyard to the tomb of his commander and he kneels down beside that tomb and he's weeping and you can tell that he's troubled he stands up and his wife comes to his!

[48:12] and he says to her tell me I've lived a good life tell me I'm a good man I used to like that ending now I think it's sad that question haunted him all of his life have I lived a good life am I a good man I don't know friend in Jesus Christ that question doesn't haunt us we know we're sinners we know that we're not good enough we know that we can't measure up to God's perfect standard but we also know that where we fail Jesus has not he lived the sinless life he was the only one who is truly good and he died on the cross to atone for our sins that by faith in him we are clothed in his righteousness we receive his goodness so when

[49:18] God looks at us in Christ he sees Jesus he sees sinlessness he sees righteousness and so we don't have to wrestle with that question am I good enough have I lived a good enough life Jesus makes it clear here that you have a master and it's impossible to serve two masters because they're diametrically opposed to one another one will give you life in abundance that's Jesus the other will consume an abundance of your time and lead you to waste your life and spend your eternity in hell who is the better master should be clear it's

[50:22] Jesus so what do we do with all of this I think this is how we adjust you invest yourself totally in Jesus if you've done that do it more don't stop if you haven't start invest yourself all of yourself all of your time all of who you are in Jesus in the final analysis there is nothing so insulting to God as to say you are serving him than to to show that your life by the way that you live it you don't really treasure him what you truly value is the things of this earth what you truly value is money the farmer's cow delivered twin calves one was red one was white and he was overjoyed by his good fortune but he knew that

[51:28] God is the one who had blessed him with this extra cow and so he told his wife about how excited he was he was so excited that he said to her one of these cows will belong to the Lord and the other one will belong to us well after a few weeks one of those calves!

[51:50] died the farmer went into his house and his wife could tell that he was dejected and sad what happened he said well I hate to say it but God's calf died does it seem like does it seem like in your life that it's always the Lord's calf who dies God has blessed you God has given you a lot and you have plans to do something with it but then things happen times get tough and all of a sudden those plans go for nothing the Lord's calf has died again God gave you his best do you give him your best trust you have undergone the audit you have undergone the assessment of what you value so what is it is it

[52:55] God or is it money and if it's not God what do you do now well confess that God knows you can't hide the truth from him confess that and then start doing what he's commanded you to do start storing up for yourselves treasure!

[53:16] give your time give your talents give your treasures to the Lord think about that first what do I have that I can first give to God what makes a person rich knowing Jesus following Jesus and serving Jesus in a moment I'll be down there and if you're here this morning and you don't know Jesus and you realize that he has opened your eyes to see your need for a savior you understand your sin and how you've been wasting your time and you want to stop praise God I'll be down here and I would love to talk with you and pray for you we want to disciple you for the rest of you guys what do you!

[54:07] value how has God's help follow Jesus and serve him keep your eyes not on the splinter but on eternity let's pray Lord forgive us that so often we who know we whose eyes have been opened by your spirit who have seen that you are a better master who understand what you did to save us to redeem us Lord forgive us that so often we lose focus we lose sight of what matters in life forgive us Lord that so often we act as if we are owners of not just the things that we have but the own lives that you have given to us and we hold on to these things with a clenched fist when

[55:08]  God you tell us to live with an open hand knowing that whatever you put in and whatever you take out that's for you to decide and for us to be okay with and thankful for God you know each person in this room you know what they truly value and Holy Spirit we pray that you would convict us of whatever that is so that by your grace we will not waste our lives that we won't waste the precious little time that we have here on earth trying to build and preserve our own kingdoms when you called us to something much greater and something that is eternal and so God I pray that for each of us what we truly value would be you our salvation and our eternity with you and that we wouldn't waste our times but we would get busy doing being the kinds of people that you called us to be in Jesus name we pray amen