Sermon Central
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Where Your Treasures Are There Will Your Heart Be Also
Contributed by John Johnson on Jan 19, 2002 (message contributor)
Summary: Consider the Lillies, they neither toil nor labor, but God provides for them. He will provide for those he love and are called according to his purpose. Don’t worry, be happy.
Where Your Treasure is, There will your heart be also.
We are a nation of worry. We worry about how fat we are, or how skinny we are. How dark we are, how light we are. People with jobs worry about their work. People without jobs worry about not working. A song writer wrote a song a few years ago “don’t worry, be happy”. Then I heard somebody say just the other day that if you worry, why pray. If you pray, why worry.
In order to not worry, people turn to drugs and alcohol. Some folk turn to prescription drugs, seminars, and self-help books. But we need to realize that God is still in charge of every situation. He even knows the number of hairs you have on your head. He understands us and knows our needs better than we do. Don’t worry about the battle because the battle is not your’s it’s the Lord’s. So we need to learn today to lay up our treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrup. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
Treasure, what a word. (parts of speech). As a noun, it speaks of riches, usually stored up or hoarded. It may speak of any precious items that are valuable to you. As a verb, it speaks of collecting and/or storing up things of value. It means holding on to those things that you love the most. In other words, we treasure our treasures.
In the passage before us, Jesus speaks of our tendency to center our lives around things of this world and forgetting the real meaning of life. Most of us are not worried about what we’re going to eat or wear today, but we are worried about tomorrow and the next day. Some of us have already stored up things for what’s going to happen on January 1, 2000. I’m not telling you not to be prepared but when we worry about the future it is sin because it denies the love, the wisdom and power of God. First of all it denies the love of God by implying that He doesn’t care for us. Then it denies his wisdom by implying that he doesn’t know what He is doing. And then it denies His power by implying that He isn’t able to provide for our needs.
When we worry it causes us to devote all of our energy to making sure we will have enough to live on. Then before we know it, our lives have passed us by. We are 40, 50, 60 and 70 years old and we have missed the central purpose for which we were made. God didn’t create us to eat, drink and work. He created us in his own image and likeness so that we can love, worship, and serve him and to be his ambassadors here on earth. Our bodies were created to be our servants and not our masters.
One of the most beautiful flowers in the world is the lily. Lillies smell good and look good. So let us consider if you will…the lilies…. Jesus here in this passage of Matthew 6 verse 28…says to us….”Consider the lilies”. See how the lillies grow. Consider the lilies. And there are some questions that are raised about the lilies. When I read this text and I saw the word consider, I went to Mr. Webster about this word consider and I found that it means to think about it carefully and serious and today I want us to think about the lilies carefully and seriously.
In order for us to analyze this particular verse we need to ask some questions. Now the 1st question that came across my mind was to wonder what is it about the lily that Jesus wants us to consider. So I began to consider the lilies.
You see in the beginning of the text Jesus starts off by telling not to worry about your own life. He tells us not to be concerned about what you will eat or drink. Jesus says, don’t even worry about what you wear. I found out that too many of us today get caught up in the keep up. We’ve got to keep up with the Joneses. We’ve got to keep up with what kind of hat Sister Suzy has, what kind of car Brother Andrew has got…. Aaron has some new Nike’s so I got to get me some Jordan’s. Kesha’s got a new short dress and mine has got to be shorter. Your friend got a long weave and yours got to be longer. But Jesus says…. “Do not worry about what you will wear. For the bible says that man looks at the outward appearance but God looks at the heart. “It’s what’s on the inside that’s important. We should have something on the inside that’s working on the outside that if Bro. Roberson don’t have what you got he’s gonna want what you got. If he sees that you have joy when you are going through a trial he’s going to want that to.
