MONEY WORRIES: If money is so important to me, how do I stop worrying about it?
- Luke 12:22, 29 – “do not worry”
- Worry comes naturally to us and worrying about money comes naturally to us.
OUR WORRY FOCUS: You worry about things you love.
- We don’t worry about things we don’t care about.
- I don’t worry about the economic situation in Peru.
- I don’t worry about the lower sales of jazz music in America.
- I don’t worry about the boating industry in South Africa.
- I don’t worry about what’s cool in Greenwich Village.
- I don’t worry about what’s on Justin Beiber’s next music release.
- I don’t worry about the quality of the surfing in Malaysia.
- There are a billion other things that I don’t worry. Not only do I not worry, but I’m not even tempted to worry. Why? Because I don’t love any of those things.
- That’s why we worry about the bad test result of a love one. We love that person.
- That’s why we worry about our sinking finances. We love our lifestyle and want our family supported.
- That’s why we worry about finding someone to marry. We love ourselves and want happiness.
WHAT'S THE SIGN YOU'RE TOO FOCUSED ON MONEY? If you’re worried about money, then you’re too focused on money.
- Luke 12:22, 29.
- It’s pretty straightforward: if you’re worried about money, that’s in itself evidence that you’re too focused on money.
- This ties into what we just talked about: worrying about the things that we love. If we’re worried about money, it not only means that we have a worry problem, it also means that we have a money problem.
- You worry about what matters to you. When money is your love or even your god, then you worry about your money.
- Now, I realize that this line of reasoning is not helpful when it comes to our children or similar things because we should love them, but there is a different argument to be made there. For right now we’re focused on money.
AIMING HIGHER: “Set your heart” means to focus your attention and desire.
- Luke 12:29.
- There is a key phrase in v. 29: “set your heart.” Let’s examine it.
- First of all, what does it mean? It means to focus your attention and desire.
- Second of all, do we do that with money? Absolutely. We “set our heart” on having more and getting more stuff.
- We think about making more money. We think about having a higher standard of living. We think about having more possessions. We think about what new gadget we’d like to have.
- Does money have our attention? Undoubtedly. Is money an object of our desire? Certainly.
- We need to set our heart elsewhere. What do we need to set our heart on?
WHAT DO I AIM FOR? Desire to have a deep soul, not a fat wallet.
- Luke 12:22-23.
- Verse 23 tells us that life is more than food and clothes.
- God is not saying that those things are completely lacking in importance. In verse 30 we’re told that God knows we need them. In verse 31 we’re told that God is willing to provide these things for the one who is putting the Kingdom first.
- It’s not that money things are of no importance – it’s just that money things are not worthy to be the main things. Money things are not worthy to be the focus of our lives. Life is more food and clothes.
- Jesus is saying that money is not worthy of your worry.
- What’s it mean to set our heart on a deep soul?
- It means that deepening our soul is our heart’s desire. We want to have more of Jesus. We want to be more like Him. We want to see answered prayer. We want to know His will through His Word.
- Be honest: is that a strong desire of your heart? A modest desire? Not at all a desire?
- For many of us, the answer there would not be encouraging. We kinda sorta want more of God, but not enough to make it a passion. It’s not the desire of our hearts.
- Let me use an example: let’s say there’s a 35-year-old guy who hangs around his basement all the time playing “Call of Duty.” You ask him what his life’s goal is and he replies, “Getting all the way through ‘Call of Duty.’” You would rightly say that’s pathetic and he’s on track to be a world-class loser. Why? Because he should be aiming higher in his life.
- We need to want more. We need to want deeper. We need to think of more than shallow money. How to do we begin to do that? How do we begin to redirect our heart?
HOW DO I REDIRECT MY HEART? Decide what your treasure is.
- Luke 12:34.
- This is not the full answer, but it is a place to start.
- It seems incredibly shallow to say it out loud:
a. “I want to live my life accumulating things.”
b. “I want to focus my heart on stuff.”
c. “I want to put my soul into my possessions.”
- That just sounds pathetic. (Mostly because it is pathetic.)
- We’d probably never come out and say it directly like that, and yet many of us live that way. We live for our possessions, we live for our shopping, we live for our stuff.
- We need to set our heart on higher things.
- I need to know that my treasure is something that I cannot buy at Walmart.
- What is your “treasure”?
- What’s the thing that you love? That your heart is set on? That you want more than anything else?
- Is it to have more of God? To know Christ more deeply? To be more like Jesus?
