Where do your Loyalties Lay?

Jack Benny used to perform a skit where he’s walking along a street. Suddenly an armed robber jumps out of the shadows and cries “Your money or your life!” There’s a long pause and Jack does nothing. Finally, the robber says “Well?” Jack replies, “Don’t rush me. I’m thinking about it.”

Money is a subject that is very important to us. Have you ever noticed how we’re willing to reveal almost everything about ourselves except our financial affairs? We’ll talk about our weight, we’ll talk about our age, our health, our family problems, even our sex life - but we’ll never talk about our money.

Maybe that’s because our money is so close to the center of who we are that we’re afraid to talk about it for fear of revealing too much of ourselves. But you know something? Our money talks for us. Money talks, and when it does, it tells me about my heart.

Nothing reveals the condition of our hearts more clearly than what we do with our money. You can tell a lot about a man just by looking at his checkbook. You can tell about his priorities, his values, the things he considers important in life. Most of all, you can tell about his spiritual condition.

Jesus knew that money is the number one spiritual barometer in all of life. That’s why he spent so much time teaching about it. Of the 38 parables that Jesus gave us, 16 have something to do with money or possessions. In the passage before us in Matthew 6, Jesus gives us four major principles about money.

1. Use your money to make quality investments.

Matthew 6:19-20 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.

- expert investment advice: diversify horizontally. Why? To safeguard against loss from inflation, recession, market changes, etc.

- Jesus’ investment advice: instead of diversifying horizontally here on earth, you should consolidate vertically in heaven.

- a dollar invested here on earth is ultimately a dollar lost, because you can’t take it with you when you die.

- you never see a tombstone with a dollar sign on it.

- you never read an obituary that contains a person’s balance sheet.

- the “rust” is probably that which affects hoarded grain, making it rotten and unusable

- value of Romanian lei so little that people traded in cigarettes

- Trump fortune: if he could lose it so quickly, did he ever really have it?

- giving to the Lord’s work enables us to invest in heaven.

1 Timothy 6:17-19 Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.

Luke 12:33 Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.

Every dollar given to God is a dollar invested in heaven. How’s your investment portfolio?

2. Your heart follows your money.

Matthew 6:21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

- we have the idea that our money follows our heart; that we put our money where our heart already is. Not true. It’s actually the other way around.

- if you want to find out where your heart is, find out where your money is.

- if you have a lot of money tied up in your house, that’s where your heart will be

- if you have a lot of money tied up in your car, that’s where your heart will be

- if you have a lot of money tied up in the stock market, that’s where your heart will be

- Jesus said our heart follows our money, not the other way around.

- So if you want your heart to be in heaven, put your money there.

- giving to God’s kingdom helps us to keep our focus where it ought to be.

3. Your life reflects the focus of your eye.

Matthew 6:22-23 “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

- talking about your eye as though it were a window into your life. If the window is clear, then your life will be full of light, but if the window is cloudy, your life will be dark. Now what makes the window cloudy? Money.

- money has the power to seize our focus, and when it does, it clouds our lives and plunges us into spiritual darkness just as certainly as if we taped a twenty dollar bill over our eyes.

- this is why the Bible warns us against the “deceitfulness of riches” and the “love of money being the root of all evil”.

There is a Jewish legend about an old man who was very rich. But he was a miserable tightwad with his money. One day he went to see a rabbi. The rabbi took him to a window. “Look out there” the rabbi said. “What do you see?”

“I see men, women, and children” said the rich man. Then the rabbi took the man by the hand and led him to a mirror. “Now what do you see?”

“Now I see myself” said the rich man. The rabbi said “Listen to me. In the window there is glass, and in the mirror there is glass. But the glass in the mirror is covered with a little silver. No sooner is the silver added than you stop seeing others and you only see yourself.”

Money obscures your vision. When money is your focus, you think you’re seeing things as they really are, but in truth, you are blind.

- giving helps us to keep our focus on God.

There’s another Jewish legend about two brothers. They both owned a threshing floor on a hill in Judah. One of the brothers was married and had ten children. The other brother was single. Every day, they would thresh the grain that was brought to them by the other farmers, and take their payment home in sacks.

One night, after a particularly good day of business, the single brother was lying awake thinking. He thought to himself “It isn’t right that each day my brother and I divide our grain equally. After all, he has twelve mouths to feed, and here I am, just one.” So he got up in the darkness and he put some of his grain into a sack and he crept over to his brother’s house and dumped the sack into his brother’s granary.

But later that same night, his brother woke up and began thinking to himself. “You know, it isn’t right that each day my brother and I divide our grain equally. After all, when we grow old, I will have all these children to take care of me, but he will have no one.” So he got up in the darkness and he put some of his grain into a sack and he crept over to his brother’s house and dumped the sack into his brother’s granary.

Night after night the brothers did that, each one taking some of his grain and secretly putting it into the other’s granary - neither one knowing what the other was doing. But one night, the single brother was a little later than usual in taking the grain over to his brother’s place, and his brother was a little earlier than usual in taking his grain over to the single brother’s place. And in the darkness, there on the threshing floor, they stumbled into each other.

When they recovered from their surprise, they looked at each other and the sack of grain they each held in their hands and they fell into each other’s arms and wept. And God looked down from heaven at the two brothers embracing there on the threshing floor and said “That’s where I’m going to build my Temple.”

Giving helps us to keep money in its proper perspective. It prevents money from becoming the focal point of our lives.

4. You can either serve God or money; not both.

Matthew 6:24 “No one can serve two masters. 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 both God and Money.

- you either serve God and use money, or use God and serve money.

- money is a harsh master:

- John D. Rockefeller: I have made many millions but they have brought me no happiness.

- William H. Vanderbilt: The care of 200 million dollars is too great a load for any brain or back to bear. It is enough to kill anyone. There is no pleasure in it.

- John Jacob Astor: I am the most miserable man on earth.

- Henry Ford: I was happier when doing a mechanic’s job.

- Andrew Carnegie: Millionaires seldom smile.

Who are you serving today? Are you serving God and using your money to bring glory to Him, or are you serving your money?

A wealthy Christian woman died and went to heaven. The angels showed her to the place where she would live. It was a very tiny, plain cottage, with no curtains on the windows, and no carpets on the floors. She was quite put out, and complained “Who lives in that beautiful mansion over there?”

“Oh that belongs to your gardener” one of the angels replied.

“How is it that he has a house so much better than mine?” the lady asked.

“The houses here in heaven are prepared from the materials that are sent up ahead of you. We do not choose the materials. You do — by the way you serve God while you’re on earth.”

We have learned…

1. Use our money to make quality investments.

2. Our heart follows our money.

3. Our life reflects the focus of our eye.

4. We can either serve God or money; not both.

Money talks: when it does, it tells me about my heart. What does your money say about you?