Your Treasure
Tom Shrader walks through Matthew 6:19–34, contrasting treasure laid up on earth with treasure laid up in heaven, and calling believers to stop the strangling habit of worry by trusting God as their Master. He connects this passage to 1 Timothy 6 and Hebrews 13, presenting godliness plus contentment as the biblical formula for true success. Using Jim Elliot's diary, the example of a dying man's final words to his grandchildren, and practical observations about housing decisions and consumerism, Shrader challenges his congregation to embrace contentment as the missing ingredient in the Christian life.
“Worry is the opposite of contentment, which should be the believer's normal and consistent state of mind.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: The Sermon on the Mount
Recorded: 2005 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 46 min
Themes: contentment, worry, money, treasure, generosity, trust, materialism, priorities, struggling with anxiety, chasing success, young adult, new believer, parent, feeling financially stressed, navigating consumerism, husband
Scripture: Matthew 6:19-34, Matthew 6:19, Matthew 6:20, Matthew 6:21, Matthew 6:22-23, Matthew 6:24, Matthew 6:25, Matthew 6:26, Matthew 6:27, Matthew 6:31, Matthew 6:33, Matthew 6:34, James 4:4, 1 John 2:15, Luke 12:22, 1 Timothy 6:6-8, 1 Timothy 6:10, Hebrews 13:5, Ecclesiastes 5
Theological Themes: stewardship, kingdom of god, eternal rewards, sanctification, lordship of christ, biblical contentment, mammon, godliness
Full Transcript
Where Your Treasure Is
Open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 6, verse 19 and following. This is where we spent some time last week. Here is what Jesus says — Jesus speaking, the greatest teacher that ever lived, delivering the greatest message that was ever preached. He says this: "Do not lay up treasures for yourselves on earth."
Now we could read that and say He is telling us not to lay up any treasures at all. But He is not saying that. Look at verse 20: "But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven." He does not have a problem with you and me laying up treasure. The problem is where we are placing that treasure. He is saying, listen, you have two economies running here. You have God's economy, God's value system — that is referred to as treasure in heaven — and you have man's economy, man's value system — that is treasure on earth.
Here is what He is saying: I want you to lay up treasure, I want you to store up treasure, but not treasure on earth. Why? The moth is going to get it, the rust is going to get it, thieves are going to get it, and even if you survive all of life, you are going to die and leave it here. When you and I are looking for an investment opportunity, we are looking for a sound investment — as high a return as possible and as little risk as possible. Jesus said, I will give you an investment opportunity that has eternal return with no risk. Invest in the things of God, the things of heaven.
Follow the Money
Verse 21: "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Here is what He is saying: follow the money. Follow the resources. You and I have a finite number of resources available to us — a finite number of resources of time, energy, effort, and money. We only have so much.
Now, some of us have different levels when it comes to money. Some of you have a great deal of money. Some of you are just scraping by. Most of us are somewhere in the middle, where we have enough for our needs and can typically manage the things we want. But here is a resource where there is perfect equality: 144 hours is what each one of us has to invest this week. So where are you going to invest it? Investing it wisely would mean treasure in heaven. Investing it foolishly would mean treasure on earth.
Wherever you place those finite resources — time, energy, effort, and money — that is where your heart is. So if you say your heart is really in the things of God, but the bulk of your time, energy, effort, and money is invested in the things of the world, you have a problem. You are saying one thing but doing another. We will come back and unpack that.
The Eye, the Heart, and Two Masters
Verses 22 and 23: "The eye is the lamp of the body. If the eye is clear, then the body sees well." If the eye is foggy, the body does not see so well. The same is true of the heart. If the heart is focused correctly, if my heart is on the things of God, then all of these other things start to fall into place.
Then verse 24: "No one can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or despise one and hold to the other. You cannot serve God and mammon" — God and money, God and stuff. It is impossible. We made this point last week, and it is really important: you and I are always the slave, never the master. Who is your master? You are either serving God or the things of this world.
We like to say there are some other options, but Jesus says there are no other options. It is either Him or the world system. James says it this way in James 4:4: "Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God." The same idea — if I am a friend of the world system, I am an enemy of God. Why? Because they are on a collision course. John says it this way in 1 John 2:15: "Do not love the world or the things of the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in them."
We do not always like that. We want that middle ground. But whether it is John or James, Paul in his writing, Peter, or the Lord Jesus Himself, He snatches away any sort of a spiritual Switzerland. He robs us of the idea that we can stand in the middle. He says, no you cannot. You cannot serve two masters.
When the Two Systems Collide
What He is saying is this: here is God's agenda, here are God's priorities, here are God's rules and regulations — and here is the world's agenda, and the world's priorities, and the world's rules and regulations. They are going to come into conflict. Maybe not around the clock, but they are going to come into conflict. When they do, which way are you going to flinch? One of the ways to understand that is to ask the question: where do you invest your time, energy, effort, and money?
After He talks about that — and we expanded on it last week — He moves on. Look at verse 25: "For this reason I say to you, do not be anxious." Now if you are someone who marks, circles, or writes in your Bible, when I come to passages like this it is always helpful to me, because when I return to them, my eye goes immediately to the markings.
Do Not Be Anxious
In verses 25–34, circle this phrase: "do not be anxious." It appears in verse 25, verse 31, and verse 34. Jesus is saying to you, to me, to us: I don't want you to be anxious. The command carries with it the idea of stopping something that has already begun. We are to stop worrying and not start again. That is what He is saying.
Why does He say this? Because of what we have already established: Jesus is Lord, Jesus is Master. We have said to God, "You are the One I am following. I am Your bondservant. I have trusted You with the most precious possession I have — my soul, my eternity." We believe, as biblical Christians, that salvation comes not through works but through grace, and the vehicle God uses to make that evident to us is our faith. Salvation is utterly, completely, entirely a work of God.
If we have trusted Him with all of eternity, then to be consistent, we need to trust Him with the things of this world. How foolish would it be to say, "We trust You with the most precious thing we have," and then turn around and worry about food, clothing, and shelter? In essence, what we are saying at that point is, "God, we do not believe Your promises. We do not believe Your Word." We are not to worry, because we are rightly invested, rightly positioned, and God is going to take care of us.
That word "life" carries an all-encompassing, comprehensive idea — our physical life, spiritual life, emotional life, mental life. Do not be anxious about any of the things in life. The English word "worry" comes from an old German word that means to strangle or to choke. That is exactly what worry does. It strangles us. It chokes us.
The Golf Illustration
Five or six years ago, I read about half a dozen books on golf — Bobby Jones, Ben Hogan, some of the modern writers, Nicklaus. They all had different concerns: takeaway, swing plane, and all sorts of things. But the one thing every single one of those books said was this: when you grip the club, the pressure should be as light and as easy as possible. Why? Because if you put a death grip on it, it doesn't just tighten your hands — it tightens your forearms, your biceps, your shoulders, and all of a sudden you cannot get a complete turn anymore.
We played golf Thursday, and one of the guys said, "I don't know if my swing will make the transition from the practice range to the first tee." And I'll tell you why that happens. On the practice range, you are loose. You are just swinging — balance, turn, perfect. It's a great swing. But then you step onto the first tee and someone says, "Don't think about the water on the right." You never even noticed the water on the right. "How about the trees on the left? Oh, and I think that's a new trap." Pretty soon you are getting tighter and tighter and tighter, and that long fluid swing is gone. It's the same thing I tell athletes about any throwing motion: you need to be as loose as you possibly can.
Along comes worry. From that old German word — to strangle, to choke. All of a sudden you are so tight that life is being sucked away from you and you are losing your joy. Don't worry. Don't worry about life. Don't worry about these very basic things of life.
Life Is More Than Food and Clothing
Look at what Jesus says in verse 25: what you are going to eat, what you are going to drink, what you are going to wear — is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? That is the basic premise. Don't be worrying about these things. He is not speaking only about food, drink, and clothing specifically; the application is broad. Don't be worrying about the general things of life. Don't be worrying about life itself. Why? Because God is going to take care of it.
Does that mean we can do whatever we want, or do nothing, and just sit back and say, "Go to it, God"? I don't think so. Look at the illustration He gives in verse 26: "Look at the birds." I cannot prove this to you, but remember that Jesus is teaching these people in the moment, and it is not a big stretch to imagine it. Jesus has just said, "Isn't life more than food and the body more than clothing?" — and then He says, "Hey, look. Look at the birds."
"They do not sow, they do not reap, they do not gather, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?" There was a day when we did not have to answer that question, but we have reached a point in our culture where perhaps we do need to answer it.
Looking at the Birds
There is a television show about communicating with the dead — crossing over, calling in, trying to contact someone from the other side. The host will say things like, "I'm getting somebody contacting you. Is it a Cathy, Carrie, Kirk? Does that sound right?" The caller says no. "Did somebody cross over last Thanksgiving?" No. "Is there a child?" No. He goes through three or four of these, and finally, eventually, he hits one.
I was dozing off last night, right at that point where I was about ready to fall asleep, and this host was talking along about how life distracts us. Then he made this statement — and I am not making this up — "Birds are more spiritual than people." Really? Birds are more spiritual than people? They're little souls? No, they're not. They're birds. But we can benefit from watching them, at least in this case.
Jesus says, look at the birds. You don't see them storing up a bunch of food. But you also don't see them sitting in the nest saying, "I wonder when they're going to bring room service." They're not doing that either. They work hard. They're out gathering food. It seems to me — though I don't know for certain — that they gather enough to eat for the day, eat until they're full, and then that is the end of it. That would be a great trait for me to adopt in my own life if I could manage it.
Consider the Raven
In Luke chapter 12, verse 22, Jesus says, "Consider the raven." The word "consider" means to meditate, to ponder, to seriously think about the raven. When I taught through that section, I spent a lot of time thinking about birds. What do birds do? They eat. They figure out what to do with what they've eaten. They find a nest and make other birds. That is about it.
Here is what I came up with, and this is really important: birds do exactly what they are designed to do. What are you designed to do? The chief end of man is to glorify God. So here is what Jesus is saying. Just as the birds do what they are designed to do, you do what you are designed to do — and God is going to meet your need, because you are more important than a bird.
Anxiety Cannot Add a Single Moment
Verse 27: "And which of you by being anxious can add a single cubit to your lifespan?" Which of you by being anxious can extend your life one second, one minute? The answer is you cannot. Charles Mayo of the Mayo Clinic writes this: "Worry affects the circulation, the heart, the glands, the whole nervous system. I have never met a man or known a man to die from overwork, but I have known a lot of men who die from worry."
Jesus gives us a practical illustration to press the point further. What are you anxious about? Clothing. "Look at the lilies of the field. They do not spin. They do not toil." Very similar to the picture of the birds. "And yet I say to you, not even Solomon in all his glory did not clothe himself like one of these. But if God so clothed the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow thrown into the furnace, will He not much more do so for you, O men of little faith?"
Consumed with Fashion
Right before I left my office this morning, I got on my computer, went to Google, and typed in the word "fashion." In 0.17 seconds, I got 111 million hits — fashion in Hong Kong, fashion in China, retro fashion, all sorts of fashion. There is an entire international television channel dedicated to fashion, broadcast twenty-four hours a day on satellites and cable systems. Fashion, fashion, fashion. We are consumed with it. Our concern is not simply to wear something, but to wear the right thing.
Remember who Jesus is speaking to. These are common, everyday people who had one, maybe two shirts, one outer garment. He says to them, do not worry about this — I am going to take care of it. If He was saying that to them, how much more foolish is our worry? We have closets full of clothing. Our worry is not about having something to eat; it is about having the right thing to eat. It is not about having something to wear; it is about being fashionable. It is not about having a place to live; it is about having the right place, isn't it?
Living Like a Pagan
So Jesus summarizes it in verse 31: "Do not be anxious then, saying what do we eat, what do we drink, what do we clothe ourselves?" Why should we not be anxious? Here is a glaring reason, also in verse 31: "For all these things the Gentiles eagerly seek, for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things."
The Gentiles — the non-Jews, and by extension in our conversation the unbelievers, the pagans — are the ones who say all there is is this world. All they are concerned about are material things. At least they are consistent. They are saying, there is no God, or if there is a God I will create one in my own mind, a God I would like to have — and consistently they are consumed with what they will eat, what they will wear, where they will live. Why? Because this world is all they have. At least that is consistent.
Here is what Jesus says to you and me. If you are saying Jesus is Lord, if you are saying Jesus is Master, if you carry that dual citizenship — citizen of heaven and citizen of this earth — then you have really declared that your citizenship is in heaven. And yet if you are living like someone whose home is here, worried about your food and your clothing and your house, you are living like a pagan. We could expand that list further.
Worry as Sin
We are worried about having the right shoes, the right car, the right school, the right college — right, right, right. We are concerned and worried about all of these things, and it eats us up. Jesus says we are living just like pagans. That is how a pagan lived.
I will give you a great example of the Christian community at its worst: Y2K. The whole world was concerned — this was treated as Armageddon. The computers were going to shut down, planes were going to crash into each other. The world was more or less saying, "Yeah, this sounds bad. We should have a party." And the Christians? You would go in and find them buying dehydrated food, putting everything into gold, moving everything to cash, moving to Montana. I guess that is where you go if Armageddon is coming — it is like the minor leagues for hell or something. But we were terrible. We had all these books: "The Coming Armageddon," all this tension. What is that message to the world? We were hanging on to this system tighter than they were.
Now look at verse 25: "For this reason I say to you, do not be anxious for your life as to what you are going to eat or what you are going to drink, nor for your body, as to what you are going to put on it. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?" So we have that figured out — do not be anxious. But what should we do? Verse 33: "Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you."
I remember a phrase John MacArthur uses: seeking God's kingdom is losing ourselves in obedience to the Lord. What should we be about? We should be about advancing His kingdom, losing ourselves in obedience to Him, understanding what this book says and then doing it. When my mind is focused on Him and what He would have me do, I do not get distracted by this world and the things of this world. I lose myself in obedience to Him, and therefore I need not be anxious about tomorrow — it will take care of itself. And this could be a great screensaver for you at work: "Each day has enough trouble of its own."
So what is Jesus talking about? Do not be anxious. What are we typically anxious about? Apparently we are typically anxious about what we are going to eat, what we are going to drink, where we are going to live — and you can expand on that list.
Worry Treated Too Lightly
Now here is something worth noting: worry is a sin. We have certain sins that, if you commit them, seem to be treated as the equivalent of the unpardonable sin. I am not saying they are not sin — I am not trying to gloss over them — but if you get divorced, there is a problem. If you are gay, there is a problem. And then we have other sins that we treat as no big deal. If you overeat, we are perfectly fine with that. Not only are we fine with it, we tend to celebrate it and have Krispy Kremes and all sorts of things for you when you come here, which seems ironic to me.
Worry is one of those sins we just kind of wave off. People will even say, "Oh, he's just a natural-born worrier. He has always been like that." I cannot imagine anyone saying, "He is just a natural-born adulterer. He has always been like that, since he was a little kid." The moment we talk about it that way, we trivialize it. This is not a trivial sin. This is a sin that locks us up, that chokes us, that can lead us to many other sins. It is serious.
I understand that personality-wise, some people stress over things more than others. Some people get a little anxious. Some kids cannot take tests and they freeze up a little. I get all of that, and I am not talking about that. I am talking about when I sit and worry and stew, when I am anxious, when my life is being choked out of me — that is a sin.
Contentment as the Believer's Normal State
Now we are done with Matthew 6 for the moment. We will be back to it next week. I want to read you one sentence, and it is going to lead us into a conversation for the next fifteen minutes. Writing about worry, John MacArthur writes this: "Worry is the opposite of contentment, which should be a believer's normal and consistent state of mind." Read it again. Worry is the opposite of contentment, which should be the believer's normal and consistent state of mind.
I am going to ask you to turn to two passages of Scripture. You are in Matthew, so turn to the right. Work your way through Matthew, Mark, Luke, John — getting through the Gospels — then Acts, Romans, and keep going. 2 Corinthians, then into those shorter letters: Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians. Then 1 and 2 Thessalonians — slow down now — and the next book is 1 Timothy. That is where we want to go: 1 Timothy chapter 6. We were there last week. Hold that place, then go another three books through 2 Timothy, Titus, and Philemon to Hebrews chapter 13. So now you have your Bible open with 1 Timothy 6 on one side and Hebrews 13 on the other.
Here is what we looked at last week. I want to connect the two passages today and introduce a topic I consider of great importance — remember last week I said there is one thing that is really important, one thing, and I said we would come back to it. Here it is. 1 Timothy 6:10: "For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil." We unpacked that last week, so I will not go back down that road tonight. Suffice to say that what Paul is describing is an obsession with money — with the world system. I can have a lot of money and have a love of money. I could be broke and still have a love of money. The love of money is a root of all sorts of evil.
Now look at Hebrews 13:5. Here is what the author of Hebrews writes: "Let your character be free from the love of money." There is that phrase again. That is the introductory part — be free from the love of money — "but be content with what you have."
Godliness Plus Contentment Equals Great Gain
The author of Hebrews says your life should be free from the love of money, because it will put you in all sorts of traps. The antidote to that is contentment. As we noted, worry is the opposite of contentment — and contentment should be the believer's normal and consistent state of mind. Now we turn to 1 Timothy 6, where we will spend the next portion of our time.
I spend a great deal of time in bookstores — hours and hours. In the last few weeks, Susan and I have been in them quite a bit. I walk through every section, look at all the magazines, and I try to be sensitive about staying out of certain sections, for obvious reasons. But in the business and success sections in particular, the shelves are full of it: five steps to success, finding success, unleashing the giant within you, successful marriage, successful real estate — you can find them all.
Now, there is nothing wrong with that in itself. But we are saying that God is our Master. Does He have a formula for success? Forbes has one. Fortune has one. All these other voices have their methods and formulas. Does God have a formulation for success? I think He does, and I think it is right here in 1 Timothy 6:6.
"But godliness is actually a means of great gain when it is accompanied by contentment. We brought nothing into the world; we can't take anything out of it either. If we have food and clothing, with those we should be content."
I want to put verse 6 in the form of an equation: godliness plus contentment equals great gain — equals success. Two plus two is four, and godliness plus contentment equals great gain. What is of paramount importance, absolutely essential in my life, is that I understand godliness and that I have contentment.
What Godliness Means
Godliness we would define as a consistent, genuine, authentic walk with God. It is the right vertical relationship — God and sinner reconciled. It is a sinner who is now a saint, someone who understands Jesus and who He is and why He came and lived and died, so that I can have eternal life. And this vertical relationship translates itself into life change on a horizontal plane. That is godliness.
I will even say that godliness is more important than contentment. But in an equation, both are essential if we are to arrive at success. You can go to almost any decent church on almost any Sunday and hear a message on godliness. Rarely will you hear a discussion on the missing ingredient in the Christian life, which is contentment.
That is why I so strongly encourage everyone to be part of the women's conference on the 21st of May. The topic is "The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment." Singles, you need to be there. And for those who are married, getting the tapes would make a wonderful Mother's Day gift.
The Missing Ingredient
Contentment is the sense of being satisfied even though not every want you have has been met. That is where it gets really tough. Look again at the equation: godliness plus contentment equals great gain. Look at verse 8: "If we have food and covering, with those we should be content."
The missing ingredient — and I do not think this is hyperbole, this is my wheelhouse, this is what I love to talk about — the missing ingredient for most of us is contentment. You might say the problem is somewhere else in your spiritual life, but I would suggest that if you were truly content, you could address that other issue. The missing ingredient is contentment.
The only way you will ever be content is to embrace verse 7: "We brought nothing into the world, and we can't take anything out of it either."
A Grandfather's Last Words
Many of you know Mike Knothem, Sr. At the end of Mike's life, they were providing him some assistance with breathing and other things, and we were out there to see him. They told him they were going to remove the equipment that night, that he would go to sleep, and when he went to sleep he would not wake up. He knew that. And so he spent that time meeting one by one with each of his grandchildren. Jewel, his wife, reminded me of this just this morning, and I asked her permission to share it. She said, absolutely.
Mike was a man who had attained a real level of success and all that goes with it in life. But in every one of those final conversations — lots of tears, because this was the last moment with Grandpa and everyone knew it — he said the same thing. He said, "Look at me. I came into this world with nothing. I am leaving with nothing. And the faster you get it, the better off you are." He in fact lasted the whole night and then passed.
That is why when I am with students, I know I may drive them a little crazy, but I hope they know how much I love them. We will go through this again at summer camp. The earlier you get your arms around this truth, the better off you are going to be — because the world and the world system is constantly screaming at you to not be content, to grab more.
The Cost of More Space
Let me use an illustration, and I hope you take it in the right sense. It certainly isn't meant to make you angry or to put you down. I just want you to think about this.
This plexiglass section here represents a map of the East Valley. Up here in the corner is East Valley Bible Church, and then we go south down toward Ocotillo, and further east out to Gold Canyon. We are in the process of trying to figure out how to minister to you most effectively, and one of the challenges is simply the geography. We have no conclusions — we are just considering a lot of ideas about how to do this.
There is a map over in the office building with a dot representing every household in this area that calls East Valley Bible Church home. We have a whole bunch more dots down south than we did two years ago. I assumed those were people who had discovered the church from out that way, but the staff told me no — these are people who lived right in this vicinity, owned homes here, and moved down there.
I asked why anyone would do that. The answer: if you get 1,800 square feet here, you can get 2,300 square feet there.
The True Price of 500 Square Feet
Let me tell you something — 500 square feet is no reason to move 35 or 40 minutes away. That is really foolish. You are going to add 30, 35, or 40 minutes to your daily commute each way? You are going to drive another hour to an hour and a half each day? You are going to spend another $200, $300, or $400 a month on gas? You are going to take a life that is already so busy and add another hour, hour and a half in the car? And this is not freeway driving on a road trip — this is bumper-to-bumper tension.
Are we really going to do all of that for 500 square feet? "Well, we had a baby. We needed another room." Let me help you out with a radical idea: put the kid in with another kid. They do not need their own room. Stack them up. I never had my own room, and I do not know anybody who did.
This is serious. Those 500 additional square feet need to be furnished, maintained, cooled, insured, and taxed. All of that costs money, which means you are going to work harder to support that extra space. And I have not even gotten to my real objection yet.
What You Leave Behind
My real objection is this: you have cut yourself off from your entire support base. You were in one neighborhood. You used to see friends out walking around. The ladies would run into each other dropping the kids off at school and say, "Let's go to Starbucks," or "Let's take the kids to McDonald's, let them play, and we'll have a cup of coffee and talk." That is not going to happen when you move 30 minutes away. It is not going to happen.
You may be writing "Friends Forever" on your bulletins with a little heart around it like it is a yearbook — but it is not going to happen. A lady came up after the last service in tears and said, "That is exactly what happened. My friend moved out there, and we used to see each other and talk every day. It does not happen anymore." All of that for 500 square feet.
Now you tell me. Here I am with enough of a house that I have food and clothing, with which I should be content. I move out there for 500 square feet. You tell me — does that sound like laying up treasures on earth, or laying up treasures in heaven?
Keeping Up With One Another
We just think this way. We are keeping up with the Joneses. What drives me crazy is when we are keeping up with each other. I have people who say, "I talked to everyone in my small group about this move, and they were all okay with it." Of course they were okay with it — because once you do it, it justifies whatever they want to do. After all, you have this car, but look what they have. And look what they have. And look what they have. It is not about them. It is not about what anyone has. It is about the kingdom of God.
You are singing these songs — "Just as I am," "Here I am, You're the master, I'm the slave" — but we made a decision to buy 500 extra square feet out there, and now we do not have the time. We have seven hours a week that we are spending behind the wheel that we could have given to God, but we are consuming that time and energy and fuel because we needed 500 square feet. That is just not very wise. I do not mean that harshly. I am simply saying that nobody ever told you.
The Trap of Loving More
Once you start that game, you cannot stop it. Here is what Solomon writes in Ecclesiastes 5: "Whoever loves money never has enough money. Whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income. As the goods increase, so do those who consume them." We get on this ladder, and if money and possessions are what we love, we will never have enough.
I cannot tell you how many times I have helped someone move, and we sit around afterward drinking Diet Coke and eating pizza, and they say, "This is so cool. God is so good. Look at how God has blessed us. We could be in this house forever." Two years later, they are moving again. Just because they can afford it.
That is what I keep hearing: "Well, we can afford it." But that is not the issue. The question is not what you can afford. The question is what is wise.
Where Your Heart Truly Is
When people tell me they are moving to another city, I ask them two questions. First, have you got a job? Usually the answer is that they are looking hard for one. Second, have you got a church? The answer there is almost always no — they are going to find one when they get there.
If your treasure is where your heart is, what I get from this is that the job is more important than the church. Here is what I have learned: there are not a bunch of good churches hanging around on every corner. There are towns that do not have any. So you move, you find the job, and when someone asks whether you have found a church yet, the answer is that you haven't really gotten to that yet. Where is your treasure, my friend? Where is your heart? We just got a peek, and the heart is in the wrong spot.
Jim Elliot and the Danger of Accumulation
Some of you know the name Jim Elliot. For those who do not, do yourself a huge favor: get on the web, type his name into Google, and find this young man who ultimately married Elisabeth Elliot. Sink yourself into his story. He dies at a young age — twenty-seven years old. His diary was published as the book *Shadow of the Almighty*.
Here is an entry he wrote when he was twenty-four years old. Bear in mind that at this point he is wrestling with whether to take a wife — he ultimately does marry:
> "I have been musing lately on the extremely dangerous cumulative effect of earthly things. One may have good reason, for example, to want a wife and have one legitimately. But with a wife comes Peter the Pumpkin. It is a proverbial dilemma. He must find a place to keep her. And most wives won't stay on such terms as Peter proposes. So, a wife demands a house. A house, in turn, requires curtains, rugs, washing machine, et cetera. A house with these things must soon become a home and children the intended outcome. A car demands a garage. A garage, land. Land, a garden. A garden, tools. Tools need to be sharpened. Woe, woe, woe to the man who would live a disentangled life in my century."
He continues:
> "I've learned from this that the wisest life is the simplest life, lived in the fulfillment of only the basic requirements of life, shelter, food, covering, and bed. And even with these, they can become productive of others' needs if one does not heed. Be on guard, O my soul, of complicating your environment so that you have neither time nor room for growth."
The Needs Multiply as They Are Met
Buried in that passage is one phrase I want to make sure we do not miss: *the needs multiply as they are met.* Our natural thought process is that we meet a need and we are done. What Elliot is saying is that meeting a need creates other needs. I am begging you to get your arms around this, because until you reach a genuine place of contentment, I do not believe you are going to experience all that God has for you.
What follows in Elliot's diary entry is a paragraph that, if you know his story, is striking in a way that is hard to explain. He seems to shift direction entirely, and it is hard to know why he wrote it at this particular point. He says this:
> "I must not think it strange if God takes in youth those whom I would have kept on earth until they were older. God is peopling eternity, and I must not restrict Him to older men and older women."
Looking Ahead: Contentment and Treasure in Heaven
I want to come back next week and spend more time with the idea of contentment, because contentment is not limited to this one matter of finances. I also want to return to the question of what it means to lay up treasure in heaven. I think we have developed a reasonable sense of what it means to lay up treasure on earth. But what does it mean to lay up treasure in heaven? We will talk about that next week.
Closing Prayer
Father, thank You for all that You have given us. We look around and You have blessed us with so many things. We pray that You would put in our hearts a spirit of contentment and of satisfaction. God, we love You. We call You Master. God, help us live that way. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.