CP W5 D3 Sermon on the Mount - Treasures in Heaven (Matt 6:19-24)

Today in our reading Jesus cautions us against focusing too much on our material things. He does this because when we are focused on material abundance - our things and our wealth - we greatly risk loosing sight of the spiritual blessings in life.

Personally, I have a love-hate relationship with these verses in the Bible. They tend to be overused in many churches during stewardship season (weird timing considering we are starting our own stewardship campaign) as a means to encourage people to give more. But as a grieving father, I have big problems with the concept of "laying up treasures in heaven" because my treasure is already there. So I cringe (I hope inwardly, but probably outwardly as well) every time this verse is used during stewardship talks.

But the verse has great meaning for me as well because it is true. Each thing (little or big) consumes our mental effort - not only in acquiring the thing, but also in maintaining and worrying about it. So as an example, if I buy a new guitar, I spend time (sometimes considerable time) focusing on exactly which guitar I should purchase. This might get in the way of the time I could spend with God. But then once I have it, I must spend time dusting it (sorry, I meant playing it), changing strings, polishing it, learning new music, and the like. This too is time away from focusing on God. Now perhaps that's an OK trade, because now I have a skill and I can use that skill to bring God's joy to others, or to help them worship.

Now consider what happens if I get somewhat good and decide to get a second (OK, being honest... fifth) guitar. Now I multiply all the care and feeding the instruments require. But I must now find places for them, and maybe I have to move them around in my den to do different things - even to get to my Bible for morning quiet time. Perhaps one of the guitars is a really expensive one, so I have to be careful to return it to the velvet lined case each time I finish playing it and maybe I need to get special insurance for it. You can see how simply owning them requires extra mental energy.

Carrying this to the extreme, what happens when I get my 30th guitar (Kristen's not reading this, right)? Now I need to build a guitar room addition to the house just to hold them all. This requires me to get a higher pressure job to pay for it all, and in turn that makes me want to go out and buy something just to escape all the pressure... then I see a telescope. You can see how carrying out this over a lifetime builds the mental energy we consume just to attend to our things.

It really does... right now my living room is filled with camping equipment that we rarely use, don't have a nice place to store, yet the three of us can't quite agree on getting rid of any one item. (I'm leaving it there until we can come to consensus and the right answer is NOT to build more storage.)

You can also see how gathering treasures here on earth gets in the way of God's plan for us to live simply while relying on Him. I think we'll read more about this tomorrow....