As we continue our study on the Mount of Blessing, let’s open up to our first text.

• Matthew 6:19-21
  19 Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: 20 But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: 21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
• Jesus tells us not to lay up treasure on earth but to lay it up in heaven. He gives a compelling reason why.
• You see, the treasure on earth can destroyed or taken by three things – moth, rust or thieves.
  • Moth will eat away at the wood, at the clothing, the garments. Those things that are soft. Even our cash made of paper.
  • The rust will destroy all things that are metallic like our computers, phones, TV’s, furniture made of metal, the large safe where we keep all our precious items.
  • And whatever the moth or the rust cannot destroy, the thief will come and break in and steal it away from us.
• All things precious can fall under these three categories in which our treasures can be destroyed.
• So we ought to lay up our treasures in heaven.

But what is the issue of where we lay up treasure?

• It has to do with our hearts.
• Where our treasure is, that is where our heart will be found.
• What we regard as more precious to us, it is because our hearts have set the affection on it. Our desires for that item, or even that job or degree, has become the central focus of our hearts.

What does the Bible tell us about our hearts though?

• Jeremiah 17:9
  The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
• The heart is deceitful. It is sly, it is insidious. It tricks us. It deceives us.
• But more than that, the heart is desperately wicked. As a result, it makes us to focus on different things, wrong things, that lead us into the path of sin and all that is bad for us.
• So when it comes to where we lay up treasure, it is a matter of our heart, it is a matter of conversion in the heart!

What is it that affects the heart though?

• Matthew 6:22-23
  22 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. 23 But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!
• Our body is affected by our eyes, what we choose to behold, what we choose to look at. If we focus on that which is good, then our whole body will be full of light. But if we choose to focus on that which is evil, our whole body will be full of darkness and full of evil thoughts.
• So the things that are around us – our friends, the environment in which we choose to live, where we choose to go to spend our free time, our work environment or where we study – all this affects our moral situation and whether we wish to lay treasure up in heaven or on earth.
• It will affect the desires of our hearts.

So what does Jesus recommend that we should do with our eyes if our whole body is full of darkness?

• Matthew 5:29
  And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.
  • If our eyes offend us, we should pluck it out!
• Matthew 18:9
  And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire.
• Jesus repeats it twice in the book of Matthew. He is serious! Our eyes can send us to hell! It’s better for us to pluck it out than to sin.
• Of course, Jesus is not literally telling us to pluck our eyes out. So what is He trying to imply then?
• You see, the eyes are a really important part of our whole body. It affects our whole life. When the eye gets hurt, we have to stop, we can keep moving forward. It’s not like getting a little cut on the finger or leg.
• Jesus is telling us that if we have to cut something out that is really important to us, then do that.
• If your laptop makes you to sin, then stop working on it. Figure out a situation where you are only at your laptop under supervision of your wife or parents or friends. Put it in a public place so you won’t be tempted to go to sites that you would normally go to in private.
• If your friends are the ones that makes you to sin, as hard as it would be, cut off seeing them so often. Easier said than done right?
• Whatever it is that makes your eyes to follow to the world and to make you to store up treasures on earth, cut it off. Change your job if you have to. Change your degree that you’re studying. Whatever it takes so that we can store up treasure in heaven.

Proverbs 23:26
My son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways.

• The Bible seems to indicate that our heart will affect our eyes. If we give God our hearts, our eyes will observe His ways. Our hearts will affect our actions.
• However, the same can be said for how our eyes can affect our hearts as well. What we choose to spend time beholding, it will eventually influence who we are as well.

So far what we have studied, it is clear that Jesus wants us to be careful with our eyes, because that can lead to where we will store our treasures – whether it is on earth or in heaven. But He’s not done yet in Matthew 6. Let’s continue reading.

• Matthew 6:24
  No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
• Why would Jesus bring up this issue about two masters all of a sudden? How is this related to storing up our treasures in heaven?
• Well it’s simple. When we behold things, we can’t look at two things at the same time. It’s not possible to look at Christ and look at our money on earth at the same time. It’s not possible to look at two women at the same time or two men. It is not possible to look at two people and be committed fully to both of them. It is not possible to serve two masters.
• The reason that many of us are storing up our treasures on this earth is because we are looking at our money more than Christ. And we think that because we just get a quick glimpse or Christ once a week that it’s enough to call ourselves Christian. But Christ is telling us that when we have two opposing forces, and one will always give way. When we are looking at similar objects but opposite, there will only be one victor. We will either hate one and love the other or vice versa.
• And in this case Christ is telling us that we can’t serve God and our money at the same time. Christ must either take the supremacy in our hearts or money will. Which one that we choose to behold more is the one that will take priority in our lives. It is the law of life.
• 2 Corinthians 3:18
  But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
• If we wish to be changed into Christ’s image, if we wish to store up treasure in heaven, we have to make beholding Christ a priority.
• No one will desire heavenly things without a heavenly mind. And it is impossible to have that heavenly mind without beholding heavenly things such as the scriptures.

So what is the balance that we must have in our lives? We need to earn money to survive. We need to eat to live. How do we balance everything out then?

• Whilst Christ is telling us that no one can serve God and riches, does it mean we must discard of one entirely? Of course not. It’s not possible. But it must not be to the point that money becomes our God, that it supplants the place of God in our lives.
• Some of us are so engrossed with making a living that we end up stopping attending church. Or we don’t have time to spend with God in His word everyday anymore. We get so busy and we prioritise our work or studies so much that that is the first thing we think of when we wake up and the last thing we are doing or thinking of before we go to sleep at night.
• We will come back to this thought. Let’s continue first.

Matthew 6:25-32
25 Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? 26 Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? 27 — Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? 28 And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: 29 And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? 31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? 32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.

Jesus seems to give quite an extreme statement about taking no thought at all about what we should eat or drink or even what we should wear. He’s telling us to stop worrying about this necessities of life that we all seem to work so hard for.

• Many of wish to eat better to even wear better clothes. If Christ were alive today He’d tell us to take no thought about our phones and our laptops and our cars. Many of us have made a God of it!
• The illustrations that Jesus gives is about the birds and the lilies and the grass. He points out nature about how grandly they are clothed and cared for by our Heavenly Father and yet we are more precious than them all. Our Father in heaven cares more deeply for us! Why should we be worrying about all these things?
• And then he makes this application at the end of these verses. Who is it that cares so much about these things? It’s the Gentiles. It’s the worldling that doesn’t know God. They are the ones that make a big deal about food and clothing and shelter and what type of phone they carry around in their pockets and how they appear in public like what sort of car they drive. It is those in the world that strive to be rich and to get more and more and to live more lavishly. That is all that consumes most of our thoughts!
• The Christian should not act that way or think that way or live that way. Our priorities should be different! We need to be careful that the desire for riches and the things of this life does not consume us and drive our whole life. That’s when we stop going to church, and stop keeping God’s ten commandments. That’s were to stop reading our Bibles and praying. That when we stop going for cell group on Friday nights. That’s when we tell our friends and the pastor that we’re just busy. Busy with work and busy with school.
• But is that really the problem? Have we come to this point that we are all just working and studying so hard? Are we really that busy?

What is the real problem? Christ knows our heart. Look at what He says.

• Matthew 6:33-34
  33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. 34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
• The problem is that we’re not seeking God’s kingdom and His righteousness. If we were, our thoughts would be in heaven and we would be storing our riches in heaven.
• It’s not that we would stop working and all become full time pastors or missionaries. But that we would prioritise seeking God and putting His kingdom first.
• We would seek Him first in the morning in our daily prayer to God and a study for His word.
• We would seek for purity of heart.
• We would seek for a life like Christ’s
• We would seek to do His will each and everyday.
• The Lord’s prayer would become our guide of life.
  • Matthew 6:10
    Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
  • His kingdom, His work, His life would all become our priority!
• I think if we prayed this part of the prayer every day, we would live very differently.
• I think if we prayed this part of the prayer every day, we would not skip our time with God in the morning.
• I think if we prayed this part of the prayer every day, we would only have one God and He would be our priority.
• I think if we prayer this part of the prayer every day, we would store our treasures up in heaven and not on this earth.

How to seek His righteousness?

• Jeremiah 29:13
  And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.
• We can be righteous if we are seeking God first thing and with all of our hearts. God’s power is sufficient to help us to be more than overcomers if we desire that more than anything else in this life.
• The challenge is where we choose to place our focus. Are we so focused on worldly and earthly things that we lose our focus for Christ and His word?
• What is our eyes beholding? What is your mind focused on?

How to know if our Father in heaven is really our God or not? How to know if we are putting Him first above everything else in this life?

• I want to take you to the story of Moses when God called him from the burning bush. He had fled from Egypt and had already been taking care of sheep for the past forty years. Now God is calling him to go and stand before Pharaoh and to lead the children of Israel out from Egypt.
• But Moses makes all these excuses. He says he can’t speak the Egyptian language. God says He would be with his tongue.
• Moses says no one will believe Him. God said that He would help him perform all these miracles so that everyone would believe.
• But Moses just keeps making excuses until God had enough.
• Exodus 7:1-2
  1 And the LORD said unto Moses, See, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh: and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet. 2 Thou shalt speak all that I command thee: and Aaron thy brother shall speak unto Pharaoh, that he send the children of Israel out of his land.
• God tells Moses that Aaron would help him to speak then. But notice what the Bible says. Moses would be like god to Aaron. Notice the order.
  • God would tell Moses what to say.
  • Then Moses would tell Aaron what to say and what to do.
  • Aaron would be the prophet, the mouthpiece.
• Who is your god? They tell you what to say and what to do.
  • Your boss tells you to come in to work on Sabbath, and you go, you that put that person above the God of the Bible. Your boss is your god.
  • Your school tells you you need to come and sit an exam on Sabbath and you go, that school is your god.
  • Your friend tells you to steal something from the shop but the Bible says don’t steal, yet you go ahead and do it. That person has become your god.
• Whoever we listen to and we act upon it, that person becomes our god.
• If Jesus really is our God, then everything He says and asks us to do, we will do it, no matter what people tell us.

What is the fruit of a person who is seeking first the kingdom of God?

• Matthew 5:20
  For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.
• Matthew 5:16
  Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
• If we are seeking God’s righteousness first, we will be following the steps in the beatitudes. We will be living the life of Matthew chapter 5 and chapter 6.

This is how we can know if we are storing our treasures up in heaven today or whether we are focused on the earth or not. Our hearts and minds will be different. Our characters will be different. What we focus on will be different. Our lives will be different.

May Jesus take His rightful place in our hearts today. May we each have a heavenly mind by seeking first His kingdom each and every day.