|
This is a text reader for the article below:
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Sunday 09/29/24
Title: Earthly treasures are a house of cards
Message Video Player
Message Audio Player:
Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:09:26 — 63.5MB)
Earthly treasures are a house of cards
Ok quick recap…
We’re still examining what it means to be empowered by the Holy Spirit as living testimonies or witnesses unto Jesus.
Of note in recent weeks we have established that you cannot be an empowered witness if you have not yourself been transformed inwardly at heart and outwardly in action by His power.
We have examined OUR part of this process which involves responding to His inner work – by loving God with all we are, Respecting and revering Him, acknowledging Him and most recently treasuring Him which is to say storing up His words within us!
Last week we read Matthew 6:19-34 where we read Jesus’ teaching about where to and where NOT to store up treasures.
He taught us that our eye is what sets the pace of your desires. The eye being a metaphor for those desires we give our attention to.
He told us that it is impossible to serve God and earthly passions.
But then Jesus said something unexpected! He defined earthly passions in a different way than most Christains would and that is a bit of a sbu-theme for the day. Allowing God rather than the devil to define what God means.
Jesus, in offering examples of serving earthly passions before God, mentioned food & clothing. The issue was not these needs themselves, but rather the anxiety over these needs being met.
THIS was Jesus’ go to example of having an eye filled with darkness!
He also called it an example of exceedingly little trust.
Knowing as we do that our trust in God is formed by coming to know Him, Jesus might as well have said that such anxieties demonstrate how little we really know our Father.
We are then instructed to direct our eye (our desires we act on or give ourselves to) towards the furtherance of the kingdom of God (within and without) and right standing with God.
We then circled back to what started this teaching of Jesus which was an encouragement to not do WHAT we DO to be seen by, acknowledged by, valued by, esteemed by, praised by people – but by God alone!
THIS is the true riches and it is deeply, intensely relational and intimate.
Later in Matthew 12 Jesus is recorded as saying rather plainly,
“(33) Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or else make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for a tree is known by its fruit.
(34) Brood of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.
(35) A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things.
(36) But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment.
(37) For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” – Matthew 12:33-37
After this Jesus compared those who are truly part of His kingdom with these pretenders.
The ultimate point being that it doesn’t matter what you claim to be true of your devotion to God and His ways, what matters is where your heart truly is. Meaning what desires you allow yourself to pursue.
This brushes up on a topic we have grazed twice now on Wednesday nights, using the mass church exodus of the Covid years as an example. Those who longed to worship God in the assembly of the saints as the scriptures encourage, were quick to return to their churches once the restrictions were lifted. Those who could have and didn’t, revealed where they truly are in relation to God’s kingdom.
I submitted to you that this was a good thing. A way of cleaning up the bride.
Going back to Jesus’ teaching – Good tree or bad tree – good eye or evil eye – good fruit or no fruit – worldly treasures or heavenly.
You know the devil is a clever one. He rarely places his real intentions out for inspection. In fact, his primary goal is to shift the attention away from himself and onto us.
One of his most beloved and effective schemes is a sort of verbal sleight of hand. He uses the rewarding or rephrasing of topics to turn our God given conscience against us and confuse us.
To illustrate…
- He calls telling people plainly about the consequences of sin – fear mongering.
- He calls pinpointing sin as hate speech.
- He calls murdering unborn children – pro-choice
- He redirects the attention away from the one being murdered to the one being inconvenienced – its her body her choice – not the baby’s body which was denied a choice.
- He calls hating the sin of sexual perversion a phobia – homo-phobe being the prime example.
These are the devil’s tactics and while they are effective, they are all too transparent to those who have eyes to see.
In like manner the devil has used these verbal sleights of hand to beguile the church and render them completely inert in respect to what God intended the local assembly to be – living and empowered witnesses. (See you thought I’d drifted from the point)
satan introduces the notion that church is for evangelizing the lost. He worked for years to get us to buy that lie. To do this he simply used one of the things we most believed in to snare us – primarily evangelism.
He twisted it from being what God instituted on the day of Pentecost – being empowered testimonies before the world into the responsibility of “winning the lost”.
Did you catch the subtle shift in attention and responsibility?
- It is no longer about your love and devotion to God.
- It is no longer about the inward transforming work of the Holy Spirit empowering the word of your testimony with a life that has been changed.
Now it is a focus upon the lost and your responsibility is to win them.
It sounds good, it sounds responsible, it sounds like proactive kingdom work – but it is nothing more than a focus on self and a desire to sidestep the spotlight of the offense of the world to the gospel.
From this newly developed vantage point it was only a simple matter of time and subtle suggestions to get the church to buy the lie that the local assembly is the natural environment in which these lost sinners are to be won.
Again he employed verbal trickery to gain advantage and acceptance of his lies.
Theological truths of love and empowered witnesses were replaced with beguiling guilt trips of “tolerance and acceptance”.
He effectively re-centered the focus of the church away from maturing and being equipped for kingdom work and over to attempting to lure non-believers into the assemblies under the misguided notion of evangelizing wolves INSIDE the sheepfold!
Out of this distortion we got the seeker friendly movement – which almost immediately began to produce more and more christians who knew they believed but they didn’t know why.
This was inevitable because seeker friendly is decidedly NOT seeking God friendly!
These regressed into immaturity and lost their spiritual mourings.
A few generations into this and we had Christians weeping bitterly in apologies to the world over not loving them and accepting them. For making them feel “uncomfortable” in our assemblies and not extending the olive branch of tolerance and acceptance to them.
Once the world gained entrance into the church – the “one bad apple” syndrome began to take hold and claim souls in the kingdom.
A few more generations later and you have Christians who know less about their bibles than the lost do.
These believers cannot explain the gospel in simple terms and actually feel judgmental for saying that Jesus is the only way.
When asked WHY Jesus is the only way they assume dumb looks on their faces due to their spiritual stupidity and ignorance.
And all – listen to me – ALL OF THIS not only could have – it WOULD HAVE been avoided by keeping our eyes good – our trees good – our fruit good – our treasures good.
Valuing the esteem of God MORE than the understanding and acceptance of man is a treasure to be stored up and protected.
Proverbs 29:25 says,
“Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD is kept safe.”
Now against that backdrop let’s examine some more words of Christ this morning found in Matthew 13, beginning in verse 24.
Here Jesus taught-
“(24) Another parable He put forth to them, saying:
“The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; (25) but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way.
(26) But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared.
(27) So the servants of the owner came and said to him,
‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’
(28) He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’
The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us then to go and gather them up?’
(29) But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. (30) Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers,
“First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.” – Matthew 13:24-30
Skipping an interlude in His teaching Jesus later said to His disciples in private,
“He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man.
(38) The field is the world, the good seeds are the sons of the kingdom, but the tares are the sons of the wicked one.
(39) The enemy who sowed them is the devil, the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the angels.
(40) Therefore as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age.
(41) The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, (42) and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
(43) Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.
He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”
Now before we continue reading I hope some of you are asking yourselves? How did we get on this topic? I thought we were talking about being witnesses empowered by the Holy Spirit!
RIGHT – and part of being that witness is knowing what the goal of that witness is!
You cannot lead others where you are not. You cannot evoke devotion to Christ in others if you are not devoted to Christ.
In the same way that you don’t learn to spot counterfeit bills by studying counterfeits but by truly being familiar with the real thing. You cannot be an empowered, living testimony to Christ if your attention is preoccupied with NOT OFFENDING the world.
Jesus told us that ALL who come to Him WILL BE OFFENDED! So how do you expect to get them to Christ – minus the offense?
Jesus actually warned us about the dangers of being liked by everyone. He said, “Woe to you when all people speak well of you, for their ancestors did the same things to the false prophets.” – Luke 6:26
We don’t have to attempt to force our morality upon the lost through our votes in order to offend. Trust me – all we need to do is live a life empowered to honor Christ before them and they will be offended – but this time at the right thing!
Right now they are just offended at Christians – when they need to be offended at Christ!
We must bring Christ as a light before the world. To live Him before the world makes us lights in their darkness – but what offends them regarding our testimony is Christ. What offends them when we enforce our morality upon them is US.
True treasure is not a world without offense to the gospel – such a gospel is no gospel at all and no treasure at all. The real treasure is the good news of God – His Kingdom – His rule, His reign as we surrender our lives entirely to Him!
(44) “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”
You see the real gospel is one that costs you everything. The real testimony of Christ which the Spirit empowers in our lives is one where we have surrendered EVERYTHING and like Paul, count it as meaningless rubbish that we might gain Christ and know Him!
“(45) “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, (46) who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it.
(47) “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet that was cast into the sea and gathered some of every kind, (48) which, when it was full, they drew to shore; and they sat down and gathered the good into vessels, but threw the bad away.
(49) So it will be at the end of the age.
The angels will come forth, separate the wicked from among the just, (50) and cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.” – Matthew 13:36-50
One final example taken from Jesus’ instructions was regarding the true treasure of keeping the commandments which is in agreement with our opening verses in Psalms and Proverbs two weeks ago.
It is found in Matthew 19:16-30,
“(16) Now behold, one came and said to Him,
“Good Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have ETERNAL LIFE?”
(17) So He said to him,
“Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. But if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments.”
(18) He said to Him, “Which ones?”
Jesus said,
” ‘YOU SHALL NOT MURDER,’ ‘YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY,’ ‘YOU SHALL NOT STEAL,’ ‘YOU SHALL NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS,’ (19) ‘HONOR YOUR FATHER AND YOUR MOTHER,’ and, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ “
(20) The young man said to Him,
“All these things I have kept from my youth. What do I still lack?”
(21) Jesus said to him,
“If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”
(22) But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
(23) Then Jesus said to His disciples,
“Assuredly, I say to you that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. (24) And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
(25) When His disciples heard it, they were greatly astonished, saying,
“Who then can be saved?”
(26) But Jesus looked at them and said to them,
“With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
(27) Then Peter answered and said to Him,
“See, we have left all and followed You. Therefore what shall we have?”
(28) So Jesus said to them,
“Assuredly I say to you, that in the regeneration, when the Son of Man sits on the throne of His glory, you who have followed Me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. (29) And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My name’s sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life.
(30) But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”
Several words are used to describe the same thing in these passages.
- Eternal life
- Kingdom of Heaven
- Kingdom of God
- saved and
- being made perfect
It is the last of these which I find the most telling.
“Being perfect” is teleious and means to have reached the goal. To have reached the limit, to be mature, to want for nothing.
So to know God in true intimacy is to keep the command and to reach maturity in it and THAT is what we treasure!
Blessings!
