Where’s your treasure?

Matthew 6:19-21 “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. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

In the final days of WW2, the Allied armies were moving across Germany from the West, while the Soviet Red army was closing in from the East. When those two spearheads finally met, in the middle of Germany, some very interesting things began to happen. A black market economy sprang up overnight.

Enterprising American troops began selling cartons of cigarettes to Russian soldiers for fifty dollars apiece. One G.I. actually sold a U.S. government-issue truck to a Russian general for the equivalent of $100,000!

How could they get such exorbitant prices for such commonplace things? Because the Russian troops had not been paid in four years. And when their payday finally came at the end of the war, their cynical government in Moscow paid them in German currency that they had captured—paper money that was utterly worthless in Russia.

So before they left Germany, the Russian soldiers had to scramble to convert their worthless Nazi currency into something of real value that they could take home to Russia with them. All their financial decisions were made with an eye on going home.

And that’s the point that Jesus is making. You can lay up treasure here on earth. And the idea is to hoard it, to accumulate it, to put all your energies into putting together a nice little nest egg. But if you do, it will have no value at all in eternity. You’ve never seen a tombstone with a dollar sign on it, have you?

Jesus says “If you lay up treasure for yourself here on earth, you’re operating in a realm of thieves, and moths, and rust.” Inflation can eat away at your investment. Changing circumstances can cause your carefully laid financial plans to go awry. And it can all happen in the blink of an eye.

How much better to lay up treasure in heaven! Just as a Russian soldier at the end of WW2 would have been a fool to have gone home to his father’s house with a box full of worthless German currency, so we need to invest our resources in that which has real value in the eyes of our Heavenly Father. But how do you do that?

In Luke 16, Jesus told a story about a manager whose boss became displeased with him. In fact, the man realized that he was about to be fired. Just before that fateful day arrived, however, he decided to use his remaining authority as manager to discount the debts of several of his boss’s clients.

He called each of them in and said “How much do you owe my boss? Okay, as of today, I’m going to give you a 20% discount, or a 50% discount on what you owe.”

And he wrote it down in his boss’s ledger book The manager reckoned that by giving those clients a break at his boss’s expense, at least they would be his friends when he was out of a job.

Well, the disciples probably had a good laugh about that story. But then Jesus gave them the application in Luke 16:9: “Use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.”

Spend your money here on earth in such a way that you will have friends “over there”—in heaven, in eternity. Invest your resources in helping others to get to heaven. If you do, you’ll be converting your present, perishable assets into non-perishable treasure.

And when you arrive in heaven, there will be a grateful reception committee waiting there to welcome you.

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.

Jesus said something very significant in Matthew 6:21. He said that your heart follows your money. Now we have the idea that our money follows our heart; that we’ll put our money where our heart already is. But Jesus said, “No, it’s actually the other way around. Your heart follows your money.

So if you want to find out where your heart really 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

Because your heart follows your money.

So if you want your heart to be in heaven, then you’ve got to start putting your money there. Start giving regularly and generously to God’s kingdom, and see if your heart won’t follow your money.