Matthew 6:19-24
The Rev. Dr. Robert S. Langworthy, preaching
September 8, 2024
The main thing in life is to keep the main thing the main thing in our life.
What is your main thing? Your career? Your marriage? Your friendships? Your reputation? Your vacations? Your success? Your just getting by?
For a follower of Jesus, the main thing in life is to make God the main thing.
In this Sermon on the Mount passage, Jesus teaches us how to keep God the main thing. While God in Himself remains ever the same, God in our life is only what we let Him be. What we let Him be for us is determined by 1) what we treasure most of all, 2) what we focus on most of all, and 3) what we aim for most of all.
First, what God is for us is determined by what we treasure most of all, for our heart follows what we value.
The Bible says that if we seek God, we will find God. But we won’t seek God unless we value finding God.
A good question to ask an atheist is this: Though you feel sure there is no God, do you think it would be a good thing if there were? The honest answer for many is that they like thinking that there isn’t a God. For they treasure their independence and they value not being interfered with – especially by a Supreme Being who might hold them accountable. While atheists are no more concerned than others about clothes that moths might eat or luxury items that thieves might steal, they do cherish more than others their freedom to make their own way and pursue what they on their own deem best. If they pursue what does not endure forever, but over time deteriorates and depreciates, they are just choosing the best options they think reality affords.
Others of us yearn for something better than the best this world has to offer. We harbor the dream of treasures that are still higher, deeper, more meaningful and longer lasting.
We – in our wild hope – sacrifice earthly treasures such as our time in this world, our talent for bringing about good things in it, and our resources of money and connections in order that we might gain still greater treasures. So, as a discipline to keep ourselves headed in the right direction, we dutifully bank on a promised but unproven future and invest in it by giving up and giving away things so as to show others compassion and to do justice. In part, we do that in the faith that the payoff at the end will more than compensate for the costs paid to get there. When we devote our earthly treasures to heavenly purposes – say, our money to feed the hungry and to sustain the church, or our time and talent to uplift the oppressed and to bring hope to the despairing – we locate our heart already in the heart of heaven.
Jesus says, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” In other words, our heart follows what we treasure. We “store up treasures in heaven” by devoting our earthly treasures to what heaven treasures most.
First, then, we let God be Himself for us – that is, the main thing – by treasuring the right things. Second, we let God be Himself for us by focusing on the right things.
A grandmother took her grandson with her for his first experience of church. When in the service people bowed their heads to pray, he tugged on her sleeve and asked, “What’s on the floor that everyone’s looking for?”
What are we looking for? We only find God if we are looking for God. So, just as what we treasure most pulls our heart along in certain directions, so what we orient our attention to does. What we keep our eye out for affects the state of our heart and the course of our life.
Jesus says, “If your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light.” The eye, which Jesus calls “the lamp of the body”, receives light from outside the body and sends it on to the body to illumine and guide the hands, feet and tongue.
In fact, what we fix our gaze upon imprints itself throughout us. So, if we fix our gaze upon what is good, noble and beautiful, goodness, nobility and beauty pervade our being. Conversely, if our eye is “unhealthy” in its focus, our “whole body will be full of darkness.” For what our eye dwells on, soon dwells in us.
I’ll never forget a young man who struggled with pornography. I always knew when he’d given into its allure, for, though his skin was naturally ebony, a darkness came upon his face and especially into his eyes. That happened because what our eye concentrates upon comes to concentrate in our soul. The eye’s orientation orients us and defines us eventually. How crucial it then is that we worship God at church on Sundays to take in His majesty and magnificence; and that we spend some time each day alone with God to take in His goodness and holiness. For just as our heart follows what we treasure, so it follows what we lock our eye on.
Finally, our heart follows what we aim for, first and foremost. We determine what God is in our life by what we set as our biggest ambition. When we make serving and pleasing God our supreme priority, we come to know more of God’s supreme reality.
Some people can’t understand why Jesus says, “No one can serve two masters.” It makes sense, however, when we remember Jesus is talking about masters and slaves, and not bosses and employees. I can, no problem, work for Smith Monday through Friday, and Jones on Saturday. But I cannot at once be a slave to both Smith and Jones. For to be a person’s slave is to be in full-time service, at their beck and call 24/7. If I have two masters, I cannot be ever-available to one without sometimes being unavailable to the other.
God is no part of a slave master; but God too can only be served with an entire and exclusive devotion. If anyone or anything else has as strong claim upon me as God, I have too small a place in my life for God to fit into
If God is to be fully in my life, He must have my full allegiance, and pleasing Him must be my prime aim. He cannot share that position with anyone else; nor can He with my pursuit of pleasure, success, wealth or popularity. Unless God is the One for whom I’d sacrifice anything and the One whom I’d never sacrifice for any other thing, God won’t be much of anything for me.
We can have and enjoy earthly treasures; but if we treasure any as greatly as God, we cannot have and enjoy God as we might. We can delight in gazing upon a Van Gogh painting or a mountain vista; but if we only have eyes for gorgeous art and the glories of nature, we’ll miss the splendor of God. We can serve all sorts of people and purposes, but if any becomes our everything, we’ve nothing left for God and He fades out of our life.
The main thing in life is to keep the main thing the main thing. If we make God our main thing, we don’t need anything else; and even if we lose everything else, we remain infinitely and eternally rich.
Write a comment: