Introduction

19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. 22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, 23 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! 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. (Matthew 6:19–24, ESV)

Example: this passage is an MRI for the soul.

Review: Jesus has gone from character (the Beatitudes, 5:1-16), to conduct/righteousness (5:17-48), to religious practices (6:1-18).

• Now he moves to the first level, our innermost core—our functional allegiances, residing deep within, that govern the entirety of our lives.

This passage has three interconnected metaphors—treasure, eyesight, and slavery.

• Jesus will use each metaphor to reveal our innermost core—our functional allegiances, residing deep within, that govern the entirety of our lives.
• Jesus’ aim: seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness (6:33).
  • Or: unswerving, undivided loyalty to the kingdom of God.

Your heart follows what you treasure (6:19-21).

19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

What are the treasures on earth?

• Context: the praise of people (6:1-18) + money (6:19-34)

Is Scripture against wealth?

• A: No, it cautions us about the dangers of wealth.
  • Proverbs study
• Material possessions are gifts from God for human enjoyment.
• Material possessions (in a fallen world) are also a significant means of turning us away from God.
• Material possessions are a major category of redemption.
  • The evidence of the gospel’s work in a person’s life shows up in (1) financial wisdom, (2) material contentment, and (3) sacrificial generosity.

But Jesus knows something about earthly treasures.

• They don’t last.
  • They are susceptible to nature’s corrosions (moth).
  • They are susceptible to time’s corrosions (rust).
  • They are susceptible to human corrosions (thief).
• There is a fundamental insecurity when life is about earthly accumulation.
  • Example: Photo of the church building—the cars, the fashion, the technology all changes.
  • Example: Turnstile—Never Enough
  • Covetousness never brings the satisfaction we think it will.

Jesus knows we can accumulate heavenly treasures.

• Jesus does not remove desire, but redirects it—he doesn’t uproot all human ambition or passion, but wants to make us ambitious and passionate for the Father’s kingdom (6:33).
• Definition: Treasures that go with us beyond the grave.
  • Direct your actions toward making a difference in the realm of spiritual substance sustained and governed by God. Invest your life in what God is doing, which cannot be lost. (Dallas Willard).
  • Holiness of character
  • Obedience to God
  • Living for eternal significance
  • Investing in others (discipleship, evangelism)
  • God himself
• These treasures are already, but not yet.
  • All these heavenly treasures make life meaningful and enjoyable today.
  • We get to already experience the not yet treasures.

If you treasure God’s kingdom, your heart will follow.

• Conversely, if you treasure earthly kingdoms, your heart will follow.
• We often believe it works the other way around, that what my heart values I will treasure.

Where you bank your resources is where your emotional and spiritual loyalty will inevitably reside.

• Example: Labrador retriever
  • Can be trained to sit, stay, heel, shake, and come.
  • But throw a tennis ball and what happens next doesn’t need to be taught—its body just goes.
  • Jesus knows the difference between rigorous discipline and a heart response to his love, leadership, and lordship.
  • Treasure the right stuff, and soon you’ll have a kingdom instinct.

• The early church supported:
  • One another
  • The expansion of the gospel
  • Their local churches
  • The poor

Your life is shaped by how you see (6:22-23).

22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, 23 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!

What in the world is Jesus saying here?

• Surface meaning: When it comes to our physical existence, healthy eyesight helps us see light, which makes life easier, while impaired vision keeps us in darkness, which makes life more difficult.
  • The eye is like a lamp. If a lamp is working, its room is illuminated. If a lamp is broken, its room remains dark.
  • Your inner vision—the lens through which you perceive everything—is like that lamp. If it’s broken, you’ll live in darkness. If it’s working, you’ll live an illuminated existence.
• Note: Healthy indicates whole or singleness (an undivided eye).
  • The word for a “healthy” or “good” eye is haplous, which literally means “single”.
  • The “bad eye” (poneros) specifically refers to an eye that enviously covets what belongs to another.
  • The healthy eye isn’t divided. It focuses on one thing, the right thing—and Jesus tells us what that right thing is. The healthy eye seeks first the kingdom of God and his righteousness (6:33).
• Jesus’ metaphorical meaning: Healthy (kingdom) goals, aims, and ambitions, lead to a flourishing life of clarity and purpose, while unhealthy (non-kingdom) goals, aims, and ambitions lead to disintegrating life of confusion and drift.

The additional warning: If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

• The most dangerous thing is that we won’t even know we are in the dark!
• The cultural background helps us understand Jesus’ meaning.
  • In Jewish idiom, a “healthy eye” meant generosity—an open-handed person who was liberal with their resources.
  • While a “bad eye” meant stinginess and greed—someone who routinely caves to covetousness and material envy.
• The surrounding passages help us understand Jesus’ meaning.
  • Before: treasure in heaven vs. treasure on earth.
  • After: you can’t serve God and money.
  • So he is certainly emphasizing our perspective on the material world.
    • What do you believe about the good life?
• Said another way: Your vision of the good life shapes everything about your life, so make sure your vision is healthily aligned with God’s. If it is, flourishing awaits. If it isn’t, chaos and drift await—and you might not even know it!
  • The blindness of materialism: not usually a sin we recognize in ourselves.

Example: Christmas presents

• A child can be taught that gratitude is good and polite, so when they receive a hand-knit sweater on Christmas morning, they might say, “Thank you, grandma.”
• But when a child’s hopes and dreams are fulfilled by receiving, say, a longed-for video game, they might let out a shriek and start dancing around the room.
  • The contrast in response tells you everything about the goals, aims, and ambitions of the child. A controller in their hands—not a sweet sweater on their body—is their vision of the good life!
• Jesus knows the difference between creedal confession (“thank you, Grandma”) and responsive worship (dancing around the room).
  • And the responsive worship comes when our eye is healthy.

How to cultivate healthy vision.

• What do you believe about the good life?
  • As western believers, we must be on guard against all-pervasive materialism. Honestly, being on guard isn’t enough, we must go on the offense against it.
• Internal discipline: simplify your focus.
  • Remove the clutter that keeps you from focusing on the one-thing of the kingdom.
• External discipline: practice generosity.
  • Give your money, your time, your energy toward things that have no earthly return. Support the poor, fund the gospel, serve without recognition, invest in people who can’t repay you. Each retrains the eye.

Your service reveals your one master (6:24).

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.

The climactic metaphor: a slave cannot have two masters.

• Masters: A worker might have two employers, but a first-century slave could only have one master because slavery demands single-ownership, full-time service, and total allegiance.
• Jesus isn’t talking about work-life balance or time management—he’s talking ownership!
  • Who has the rights to your life?

Jesus’ point: You cannot serve God and money.

• Some translations: You cannot serve God and Mammon.
• Mammon: Aramaic word for wealth or property.
  • Matthew probably left this word untranslated because the early church recognized Mammon as the name of an idol.
  • In other words, though money can be a neutral instrument or a positive good, there is often a spiritual component where it becomes a false god competing with the true God.
    • Money can be a spiritual force with tremendous attracting power (Bruner) that demands worship.
• Modern god: Success.
  • Examples:
    • Conference to 10x your income and your life!
    • Conference to unleash the power within.
    • Gambling for quick riches—even “playing” the market.

Divided loyalty is impossible: who (or what) you serve reveals your one true master.

• Jesus didn’t say it is unspiritual to serve two masters, but impossible. Eventually, we’ll turn on and despise one of them.
  • Jesus isn’t giving advice (don’t do this); Jesus is declaring how reality works.
  • Money is a good servant, but a bad master.
• Jesus: the middle position doesn’t exist.
  • If you work for possessions, you will eventually despise God; if you work for God, you will eventually despise the grip of possessions.
• Serving diagnostic:
  • We must work—and this is good.
    • Creation mandate
    • Love for neighbor
    • God’s glory
  • Where do you get your security from?
  • Where do you get your worth from?
  • Where do you get your significance from?
  • Where do you get your purpose from?
  • Where do you get your identity from?

Danger: Making Christ an accessory.

• Example: poor nutrition + alcoholism + smoking + little sleep + weekly Sunday workout = lack of health
  • Their whole system is pointed in a different direction, so the one weekly workout will make little difference.
• Jesus does not want to be an accessory to your life—he wants (and deserves) to be King!

Conclusion

This teaching from Jesus is a mirror designed to produce inspection and caution.

• Each metaphor exposes something, with the hopes or reorienting everything.

Jesus has touched on what we treasure, what we envision, and what we serve.

• Jesus has given us true treasure.

• • • For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich. (2 Corinthians 8:9, ESV)

• Jesus can give us true sight.

• • • He opens blind eyes—he might do that through our generosity, but he must do it.

• Jesus shows us the true goodness of serving the right master.

• • He did all that pleased the Father.

Group Study Questions — Matthew 6:19–24

Head (Knowledge & Understanding)

1. Jesus uses three interconnected metaphors in this passage—treasure, eyesight, and slavery. How does each metaphor build on the previous one to reveal our “functional allegiances”?
2. In the cultural context of first-century Judaism, a “healthy eye” (haplous) carried connotations of generosity, while a “bad eye” (poneros) suggested covetousness and envy. How does understanding this Jewish idiom sharpen Jesus’ warning in verses 22–23, especially in light of the surrounding teachings on treasure (6:19–21) and mammon (6:24)?

Heart (Feelings & Desires)

1. Jesus says, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (6:21)—not the reverse. In what areas of your life have you noticed your heart drifting toward something simply because you invested time, money, or energy into it? How does this principle both encourage and convict you?
2. We don’t often recognize materialism within ourselves. Jesus warned that the most dangerous thing is that we won’t even know we are in the darkness of materialism (6:23). What emotions does that warning stir in you? Where might you be confusing creedal confession with genuine responsive worship?

Hands (Actions & Commitments)

1. The sermon offered two practical disciplines for cultivating healthy vision: internal discipline (simplifying your focus) and external discipline (practicing generosity). What is one specific piece of clutter you could remove this week, and one concrete act of generosity—with money, time, or energy—you could practice toward someone who cannot repay you?
2. Where do you get your security, worth, significance, purpose, and identity? Take an honest inventory this week. Which of those five areas is most governed by financial or material concerns rather than by Christ’s lordship? What one step could you take to reorient that area toward the kingdom (6:33)?