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Chapter six, verses 1934.

Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The eye is the lamp of the body. So if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light.

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. 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. 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? 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? And which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour to his span of life?

And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin. Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so closed the grass of the field, so today, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, o ye of little faith?

Therefore do not be anxious, saying, what shall we eat? Or what shall we drink? Or what shall we wear? For the gentiles seek after these things, and your heavenly father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

Therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself, sufficient for the day is its own trouble. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Well, thank you, Sally, very much for that reading from Matthew's gospel. Please, would you keep your finger in that on page line seven, eight. We're going to be looking at this passage, and particularly looking at the first part, verses 19 to 24. But let's pray and ask God for his help and for his holy spirit as we try and understand these verses. Father, we thank you for the scriptures, and we pray now, Lord, that you would teach us through them, and that we may be reformed in our lives, that we may understand what you want for us, for our good and for our best.

Please help us by your spirit. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, as I said at the beginning, this is our dedication Sunday. We've come really to the end of our stewardship season.

We always keep November as that time when we think about the resources that we will pledge, our time, our energy, our money, our possessions, everything to the service of God through the work and ministry of this church for the coming year, for 2020. And I hope that we've given you sufficient information to help you to pray through it and to think through it. And today we come and we bring our pledges and we stand here and offer ourselves to God. These are just a token of what we give to God, what we want to present to him. We want to say, lord, take us and use us.

We often say that at the end of our service. In fact, we will say that at the end of this service. Father, take us and use us to love and serve you and all people in the power of your spirit. That's what we want. So when we bring our pledges, we are pledging not just our money, but ourselves to God's service.

Well, today in our Bible reading, we're looking at this famous passage in the sermon on the Mount. Jesus is probably his most famous sermon, and in Matthew, chapters five to seven, and he's talking specifically today about money. We're often in the church rather diffident about preaching about money or talking about money, but the Bible, and in fact, Jesus himself, isn't as squeamish as we are. He is quite open about teaching about these practical, down to earth things like money. The message very simply of this passage is, lay up treasures for yourselves in heaven.

In fact, that's the title that we have in our bibles, doesn't it? It says, lay up treasures in heaven as opposed to storing up treasures on earth. My grandfather used to have a saying in the family, and the saying was hugely irritating to my grandmother. And he would say, it's only money. Easy come, easy go it's only money easy come, easy go.

And my grandmother used to become very, very furious with him because they work really hard for their money. It's rather ironic as well because he was the most parsimonious of men I've ever come across. But he would say, it's only money. And actually I've taken to saying that in latter years to my family, much to their irritation as well. I have to say, it's only money.

But it's a good, healthy perspective to have on life, because, as we all know, we can't take it with us. And it's good that we see that we have a light touch, if you like, on the things that we have. Well, I want to talk to you today about your investment plan. Have you got an investment plan guaranteeing you a high yield on high return? Are you maximising all your resources?

Now, these are the questions that you probably will think that you should discuss with your financial advisor or your tax consultant, and I'm sure many of you do. It's not something that you expect to hear from the vicar, but actually it is something which we all ought to take account of. What is our investment plan? Is it in treasure on earth? Or is it, as Jesus says, the alternative is treasures in heaven.

Treasures on earth. Well, what are these very simple money, wealth, property possessions, bank accounts, endowment plans. These are the things that our culture values highly. That's what we are committed to doing. That's why we work, in order to get enough money to accumulate enough money to make our lives comfortable and secure.

We're always slightly afraid of what's going to happen in the future. We're slightly nervous about what happens if there's another crash, what happens if there's a famine, what happens if there is a war? What happens if all the banking system collapses? What happens if the stock market crashes? We're always slightly nervous about what's going to happen in the future.

And the message that Jesus says is, well, where are you storing up your treasure? What treasure do you have? Now, it's important to realise that Jesus is not against money. He's not saying that they shouldn't have any money or they shouldn't be prudent in the way in which they look after their families through the wealth that they earn. He's not saying that, but he is saying two things.

He's saying that wealth, or an inordinate trust in our money and our possessions is a, insecure and secondly, dangerous. Insecure and dangerous. Well, what does he say here? He says, do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal moth and rust. Well, yes, we know that.

That's what happens in this world. Moths get in and eat your clothes, rust gets onto your car and corrodes it. These are things that are corrosive. And if we actually extend it to the economic system, well, we all remember what happened ten or twelve years ago. The stock market crash, the banking crisis.

Many people lost a lot of their savings. Insecure. We think that we trust them, but actually we don't know what's around the corner and what isn't eaten away is in danger of being stolen by thieves. I make no comment about who the thieves might be. But it's interesting, isn't it, that a number of people are these days, we read in the papers, are being conned out of their savings by people on the phone or on the Internet, online and so on.

Now we think, well, we wouldn't be like that. But actually there are lots of people who are taken in by that. So they are insecure. The things that we possess actually sometimes possess us and we need to have a lighter. Hold on.

They're insecure. If we put our trust in them, then the only certain thing is that they will let you down at some point. So insecure. And secondly, they are dangerous. They are dangerous.

Why are they dangerous? Because they tend you to think this is where we should put all our trust. And instead of putting our trust in God our father, we know that we will come to the end of our lives in this world. We don't know when that will be, but we know that's going to happen. We want to make our lives secure.

We want to make provision for that, and rightly so. But in the end, we are in the hands of God. He is the one who gives us life. He is the one who determines how long we will live. And our trust then ought to be in him rather than in the things we possess.

Do you remember in Luke chapter twelve, there's a famous parable, Jesus told it about what's called the rich fool. Let me just read you a little bit of it, if I can find it, about the rich fool. And he says, he told them a parable saying, the land of a rich man produced plentifully. And he thought to himself, what shall I do? For I've nowhere to store my crops.

And he said, I'll do this. I'll tear down my barns and build larger ones. And there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years. Relax, eat, drink and be merry.

But God said to him, fool, this night your soul is required of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be? So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich towards God dangerous, because these things can entice us away from our trust in God. And they can be very tempting and very alluring, but actually they will let us down. Now, let me just say again, there is nothing wrong with careful and prudent investment for the future.

And the Bible commends that. He says that we need to look after ourselves and our families, but we must not let it dominate our lives because it will squeeze God right out of the picture. Now of course, this goes all against our culture of possessive individualism and possessive materialism. And it's easy to get for us christians to get sucked back into the way of thinking that money and possessions are really the thing that we put our energy into.

But Jesus gives us three kind of diagnostic tools to help us in this. And going back to the passage, he says, first of all he says, cheque your heart. Verse 21, have a look at that, but lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break and see. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Now think about that for a minute. Don't you think that ought to be the other way around? Where your treasure is, where your heart is, that's where your treasure is. But Jesus says something different. He says, where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

What Jesus is saying is that what you do actually concentrate on in your life is the treasure that you have. The things that we value as of being of supreme importance in our lives, the things that our lives revolve around. What are those things? Career, family, money, making, leisure, hobies, whatever we spend our time and energy on is the true indicator, if you like, of where our heart is. So cheque our hearts by seeing what we spend our time doing and thinking about.

Then he says in verse 22 and 23, he says, cheque your eyes. The eye is the lamp of the body. So if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light. 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?

Cheque your eyes. The eyes are the lamp of the body. Well, my eyes, my lamp is dimming, I have to tell you that. And I suspect I'm not alone in that. But the eye, the poets have said, is the window of the soul.

Jesus again reverses that kind of thing. And he says, actually it's what comes in. The light that comes in actually is able to illuminate what is in our lives. Our eyes do influence what we put our energies into. Our lives are an indicator of where our heart is.

So what do we look at? Well, these days, of course, the Internet is a dominating feature, isn't it? Do we look at Amazon? Is shopping the thing that we really want to get involved with is shopping and materialism. Or are we always looking at job adverts online or in the newspapers, looking for career advancement, ambition?

Or what about holiday brochures? Is leisure the thing that is dominating our horizon, the idea, the culture of relaxation? Or there are other less wholesome things that could be mentioned, but I'm not going to go into that. What we look at often reveals what we treasure. Cheque your heart, cheque your eyes.

Cheque your. Thirdly, your devotions. Look at verse 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.

Isn't Jesus rather straightforward about this? And in your face, it's a blunt statement, isn't it? You cannot serve God and money. The image he's using is of the slave market about no one can serve two masters. It's the slave market where a person could be bought only by one other person.

You couldn't have joint ownership of a slave. I once talked when I was in San Francisco, to a pilot. He'd been an airline pilot for many years and he'd retired. And in retirement he began to work for six families who had bought their own private jet. And therefore whenever they wanted to go anywhere, then he would fly them there.

And I said, do you enjoy the job? And he says, yes, I enjoy the job. And I said, what's the best aspect and what's the worst aspect? And he said the best aspect was going to different places, often at a short notice. The worst aspect, he said, was the six families competing for the plane at the same time.

And he said, I'm serving different masters and it is a very great problem for me. It's a conflict, there's a tug. We get tugged between different people.

Well, I want to remind us today that as Christians, we have been bought. Yes, we are slaves in that sense. We have been bought by the precious blood of Jesus. Jesus has given his life for us. He's given everything for us and therefore we belong to him.

And we cannot therefore serve another master. We can only serve the Lord Jesus. It's a very bold statement. So we need to ask ourselves, who is our master? Money is a great servant.

Possessions, great servants, because they enable us to do things, but they can be a very tyrannical master, and the only safe thing for us is for us to serve the living God. The time will come. When we draw our last breath and we come to the end of our lives. Our money won't make any difference to us then, but our eternal destiny in the hands of the living God, our creator and our redeemer, while that will be of supreme importance to us. So let's get our priorities right whilst we're here so then we can enjoy the eternal benefits when that time comes.