Distinctive Pursuit
Radically Distinctive • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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We have been in a series on Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and we have called this series radically distinctive. Each week, we evaluate the distinct qualities that we as believers are called to live out.
In today’s passage we are going to see a continuation from the previous. In 6:1-18, we learned about the subtlety of motive. That we can outwardly demonstrate and model a Christian life while inwardly be doing it for the wrong reasons. Reasons like receiving attention from others for our faith, generosity, and ability to carry out spiritual disciplines. Now, in verses 19-34 we begin to see how our inward motive effects our day to day, practical living. We often assume that if we develop good disciplines it will lead us to healthier places. Jesus is teaching suggests that our line of thinking may be correct, unless our motive is off base. In a sense, the question is “has the subtle, sinful nature that lives in us, grabbed hold of this world in a new way that we are unaware of today?
If our motive is anything less than total commitment to Christ, than we readily muddy the waters of what it means to live as a Christian. We become okay with pursuing Jesus and whatever else our heart desires or however we get distracted. The calling of Christ in this passage is to thoughtfully recognize that there is no distinction between our day to day life/our natural life and our spiritual walk with Him. But that in each moment, for those who have put their faith and trust in Him, He is with us, and that in everything we participate, our identity is children of God who are in relationship with Him. Meaning that our practical, daily life is to be understood and overcome by our spiritual walk with the Lord. We keep our gaze on the Lord in every moment and area of life.
The key to understanding today’s passage is a simple principle for those who have put their faith in Jesus:
You are from the king and for the king. Nothing in this life should distract you from this reality.
Lets keep this principle in mind as we work through this passage.
Matthew 6:19–24 “19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. 22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, 23 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! 24 “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.”
I am aware of a family who decided to put their kids to the test. When they heard that they would be receiving a stimulus check. They evenly split up the money they received and gave it to their kids with one rule. You must use this money to invest.
you can put it towards a car, a college fund, a dirt bike. Whatever the case know that this is not for you to buy an endless supply of candy. It is money that we are entrusting to you and want you to carefully consider how you use it.
They wanted to know how seriously their kids would handle this opportunity. Because as parents, it gives them a sense of how they will need to coach each of their children moving forward.
As we look at this passage, we need to recognize that as believers we are very much in the same position. Everything we have has been entrusted to us by the Lord. There is nothing in this world that we own, we are stewards. Yet, Jesus feels the need to directly address this issue. Because we have a propensity to lose sight of the fact, that we are from the king and we for the king. Our life, our possessions, our wealth; they are not owned by us but they are owned by God. And you better believe that He pays attention to how we use everything that is at our disposal.
God cares about our stewardship. The reason being He cares about the posture and health of our heart. He cares where your focus is directed, where your time and energy are spent, but more importantly, He cares why. What Jesus is addressing here carries over from what we discussed last week. That in our giving, prayer, and fasting the Lord wants us to be consistent. But more than that, He cares about why we are consistent. He cares about the action but He cares more about the motive behind the action. Because the motive behind the action is indicative of the health of the heart.
He cares about the posture of our heart. He is not interested in rule followers. This is why the Pharisees struggled with Jesus. Because they didn’t pay attention to posture or motive. They were not interested in why we do what we do. They cared that you did it and that it was done according to the law. Jesus cares about the heart is set on Him.
So as we come to this idea of laying up treasures in heaven instead of on earth, we need to recognize that Jesus is still talking beneath the surface - He is trying to help us evaluate the health of our hearts.
Unhealthy relationships with the material
Its important to note that He isn’t just focused on our relationship to finances. The term treasure is far wider in range. We are tipped off again in verses 22-23 when Jesus speaks of the eye. Why is He speaking of the eye, because He is calling out that we have a tendency to fixate on certain areas of life where we have an unhealthy relationship.
It may be a unhealthy relationship with money where you just need more and you seek wealth for the sake of wealth. Not recognizing the subtle shift in how you focus, handle, and use it. That over time, you have slowly tightened your grip in a way that causes you to serve money instead of God.
Maybe money and wealth doesn't catch your eye, instead it may be a similar unhealthy relationship with your desire for status or position. That the promotion doesn’t matter to you but recognition and authority are particularly attractive. It could be you need to dive fully into your work and take on the identity it offers you.
Maybe you nave come to love one of your abilities. One of the ways that the Lord has gifted you. Even in serving in ministry, it is easy to become self confident because of the gifting in our lives. Do you have an unhealthy relationship with how you have been gifted by the Lord? Making it more about you when you serve than about Him?
Perhaps its even the value you have placed on your own family. That you have made your family your whole world and elevated them above the Lord’s calling on your life. Maybe even to the point where your so focused on family that your only spiritual participation in the body of Christ is attending on Sundays.
Treasures on earth can be defined this way: Whenever we start looking at material things to define us… Material things were never meant to be your source of joy, meaning, identity
Whatever the attraction, wherever it is that your eye gets caught looking with regularity, we need to ask the question, “Where are my motives?” In this moment, is my focus on the things of this world? Have I in any way lowered or replaced Jesus from being the top priority of my life?
Jesus is not teaching that having wealth is bad. He is not saying that loving your family, being gifted, or having a position before others is wrong. In fact, in the Bible we see God encourage loving our families, gifting us with abilities and assets, we see God elevate and establish leaders. He is certainly not speaking about these things as evil. But rather He wants us to wrestle with our subtle shifts.
He is concerned when we move from stewardship to covetousness.
When we covet the world, our posture before the Lord changes and we eventually will realize that a false motive has captured our heart.
Jesus makes His point clear in Matthew 6:24 “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.”
Do you recognize that the reason you have air in your lungs is because you have been placed here by God and that He has placed you hear, as a child of His, for His purposes? That you are from the king and for the king?
We get so easily distracted.
Jesus is point blank challenging the notion of our pursuit. Many of us would readily say that we are believers and we are seeking the Lord. Yet, we don’t realize our heart is divided and we are not pursuing Him hardly at all.
You cannot serve God and this world. You must choose one, without catering to the other.
Image Blessed to be a Blessing
A few weeks ago, I shared with you about the Abrahamic Covenant, this idea of Blessed to be a blessing. The whole idea is generated from God. And in the covenant, what He is offering is that He would personally pour into your life, filling your empty vessel with spiritual enrichment so that you can also pour into others by His strength. To be filled by God in this way means that you are pursuing Him with open hands. It means that you are investing in Heavenly treasures instead of worldly treasures. Which is a far better investment, because they will last for eternity. You can’t take anything from this world with you into eternity. It stays here, its left behind. Every possession you could possibly own is only yours for a moment. So invest in eternal treasure.
Image Fractured Flow
When we get distracted and covet after the world we lose identity as His children and we drift from His presence. We rely on self and the world for fulfilment. Don’t you know that God wants to pour into you. He wants you to know and experience His mercy and grace. But the problem is, we think we can receive the fulness of God’s poured out blessing in our life while also receiving fulness from the world. But how can you receive and be filled by the Lord when you when you are focused on the world?
It is not just that we are distracted, but a subtle shift takes place and over time, distraction from God turns into active pursuit of what we covet. We choose to be stained with our worldly desires. You cannot serve to masters. It will tear you apart, leaving your empty.
Check your motives, reflect on the areas of your life that get your attention, surrender it to God, ask His forgiveness and walk in His mercy and grace.
Matthew 6:25–32 “25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?” 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.
As we enter into this section of Jesus’ sermon, I want to be clear. Jesus here is talking about the ways that we have turned to the world and sought the world. In our pursuit of the world, our duplicity of claiming to be Christian while also coveting after this world we have grown anxious. We also see people who are not Christian, who just pursue these worldly things and how there is a anxiousness in them.
Jesus is not saying that because you have experienced anxiety you have a lack of faith. Yet, He is saying that if you lack faith, it will lead you to anxious about this world. Let me clarify by saying that there are legitimate physiological reasons why some people experience anxiety. Jesus is not calling this person out.
He is calling out the person who coveted after this world. It is certainly possible that some of your anxiety is physiological and some is from sin. This is something you need to weigh before God.
The reality of this passage is that we all need to weigh it carefully before God. Because we all get caught up in the materialism of life and get distracted from God. We have already talked about how this tears us apart but look at what Jesus addresses.
In verse 27 He locks in on addressing life, food, drink, body image, and clothing. Nothing has changed since Jesus’ day. We as humanity struggle with the exact same issues today and we do it in a way that causes anxiety.
We struggle with the idea of how long we will live, desiring to have healthy practices that will prolong our life.
We want to eat great food and we compete over which restaurant or recipe is better
We are concerned about how we physically look in our facial features and overall body image.
We get concerned about name brand clothing and if that doesn't catch us, we get concerned about buy clothing that will look and feel like name brand clothing.
Jesus lists just a few ways that we get so distracted, where we can get caught up and spend so much time, energy, and money trying to feel good, look good, and have a sense of security in that they are somehow prolonging their life.
When I was playing football at Crown college, we had a group of receivers who liked wearing the best gear. From under-armor leggings to gloves, to elbow bands and skull caps, these guys were locked and loaded. They would walk out to the field on game day for warm up with their jersey’s tucked up under their pads so you could see their abs. What is comical about it, is they had a slogan that they repeated with regularity.
With a smile on their face they would say, “Look Good, Play Good”
How often, in subtle ways do we get caught up in materialism. To dismantle this line of thinking and day to day practice that we are all vulnerable to, Jesus asks a few questions and retorts with a thoughtful perspective. He is trying to get us to think with our mind instead of crave with our feelings and desires:
Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?
He is asking us to simply stop and think about it. Isn’t life more than this? Is this all it is?
26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?
We intrinsically know we are more valuable. God has created us with eternity in our hearts, we are made in His image, we participate in His cosmic plan to restore all things to Himself. Yes, we are of more value. Yes, God cares for them and makes sure that they have what they need. Should we really be anxious about eating the best food or even food at all?
27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?
There is a reality that you are From God and for God. God in His sovereignty has already decided the length of your life. You cannot add a moment. So do you trust that He will take care of you and give you what you need within the time that He has allotted you?
28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?” 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.
He is not saying to just wait for God to feed and cloth us, that we just take on a care free attitude about life in general and avoid preparing or working to get what we need. Recognize that He created you with the ability to take prepare.
Jesus is saying have faith that God has not abandoned you and left you to die. Have faith that God in heaven is sovereign over all. There is nothing you can change about His plan, and that is a good thing, God’s plan is far better than ours.
33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. 34 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”
God’s call is to “Seek first the kingdom of God and His Righteousness” He knows how the world distracts us, He knows how we drift, how we sometimes go to deal with a unhealthy area of our heart and Satan is already sneaking in the back door. He understands our struggle. But in this calling to pursue Him and Him alone, He is helping us to see that pursuit of God with out surrender, is no pursuit at all.
God gives a promise, that “all of these things will be added unto you.” Have faith that God is going to do with your life, what He has already planned.
I want to acknowledge that this can be a point of tension. Because we might readily look at the world around us and identify that there are young adults, teens, babies that die from a lack of food. They have nothing to wear and nothing to drink. This is a real tension where the hardships and struggles in this world almost seem to contradict this promise.
But I would ask, is not God sovereign over these as well?
God does not promise a long and happy life.
But God’s promise is so much greater. What He promises and what we know in our hearts is that there is life after death. That for each person, eternity doesn't begin when we die, but that it has already begun.
The temporal reality of life causes us to focus too much on this life. Jesus is calling us to think more about how this temporal life is already living in its eternal dimension. Which means, for that baby that has no food - it is tragic in the temporal - but from the eternal perspective, isn’t it far better for that baby to go to be with Jesus today? Where all of the blessings and promises of scripture that we get to claimed will be given in full.
I want to close with this:
Knowing that life on earth is temporary, that in these temporary moments we have we can choose to invest in temporary treasure or we can invest in eternal treasure. Knowing that life is short, doesn’t it make you eager to lay up eternal treasure?
By choosing the eternal, by being single minded and focused on the Lord we lay down the anxiety’s of this life, our sense of needing control - we surrender them to God having faith that He is indeed in control. Knowing that we can trust Him to guide and lead us through every circumstance.
In this chapter, Jesus starts by talking about our underlying motives for why we do what we do. He isn’t interested in rule followers. He is interested in the health of the heart. So, from underlying motives, Jesus then shifts to a focus on pursuit. A focus that is on God and His kingdom in a way that we are not distracted by the ways satan tries to entice us with worldly materialism. From this conversation of pursuit, Jesus helps us identify possible symptoms of a heart that is either divided or not paying attention to God at all.
As we use this chapter as a tool to wrestle the posture and health of our hearts, we learn what it means to live a life that is given by the king that is also for the king.
Radical Pursuit means a that we seek God in every area of life. It means we surrender all that we are and all that we have every day; recognizing that we are weak and corruptible. So we cry out to the Lord, we use tools like today's passage to evaluate the health and posture of our heart, we check our motives, and we re-calibrate ourselves to orient around the Lord.