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Trinity Community Church
Trinity Community Church
Red Letters - Where is Your Treasure?
How do you know what you really treasure? Jesus says the evidence hides in three everyday choices—where you store wealth, what you fix your eyes on, and whom you ultimately obey. In this week’s Red Letters message, Pastor Kelly Kinder walks through Matthew 6:19-24 and invites us to run a spiritual forensic audit.
Earthly vs. Heavenly Deposits — Kelly retells the tragic case of Bertha Adams, who died penniless while hoarding millions, to underscore Jesus’ warning that earthly assets are always one moth, one recession, or one hacker away from ruin. Heavenly deposits—acts of love, mercy, and gospel generosity—grow compound joy in a realm no thief can enter.
Clear vs. Clouded Vision — The eye, Jesus says, is the lamp of the body. A “healthy” or single-minded eye fills life with clarity and purpose; a “bad” or greedy eye leaves even successful people stumbling in darkness. Kelly challenges us to check our digital diets: Do our screens train us to give or to crave?
God vs. Money — Jesus ends the debate: “You cannot serve two masters.” Money is a brilliant servant but a brutal boss. When it calls the shots, anxiety skyrockets and generosity shrivels. Kelly offers three practical moves: automate first-fruits giving, set lifestyle ceilings below income ceilings, and convert talents or hobbies into kingdom blessing.
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I'm so excited. We've been continuing in our series on the book of Matthew on the Sermon on the Mount, called Red Letters, and I'm just thrilled to get to be able to do this. It's Jesus' sermon that he preached there to a group of people that were really challenged by his message, and so we're also challenged by it. I think most of us. If we read it and take it seriously, we just think of the things that this message today we're going to be talking about. Where is your treasure? Where is your treasure? And it's a good question. We all need to answer that question. Miss Bertha Adams was 71 years old when she died alone in West Palm Beach, florida, back in 1976. And the coroner's report read cause of death malnutrition and after wasting away to 50 pounds, she could no longer stay alive. That's pretty serious. They found a veritable pig pen the biggest mess you can imagine, they wrote. One seasoned inspector declared he had never seen a dwelling in greater disarray. Bertha had begged for food at her neighbor's doors and had gotten what clothes she had from the Salvation Army. From all appearances she was a penniless recluse, a pitiful and forgotten widow, but such was not the case. Amid the jumble of her filthy, disheveled belongings were found two keys to a safe deposit box at two different local banks. The discovery was unbelievable. The first box contained over 700 AT&T stock certificates, plus hundreds of other valuable notes, bonds and solid financial securities, not to mention cash amounting to $200,000. The second box had no certificates, just cash $600,000 to be exact. Bertha Adams was a multimillionaire, and then some. She yet died of starvation. Her case was even more tragic, I guess, if she was destitute spiritually. Her story is kind of an extreme example of a distorted value system, and we want to talk about that today. Our consumer society you see it's kind of like drives us to get more, have more, buy more, doesn't it that we think that life consists of what we have, our possessions? And Jesus comes along and he says something different. This Sermon on the Mount is, I guess you could say, as people call it, an ethical sermon. It's Jesus' ethics of the kingdom, and there's a distinction here between what we might say is the kingdom of self versus what Jesus offers here, where morality is often defined as whatever feels right to me. We're living in a society that has the morality based on whatever feels right to me versus the kingdom of God which Jesus is going to tell us about today. But one thing is certain, I know this, that the gospel, it really upsets our value system and we've gone through this passage where Jesus says you have heard it said, but I say to you you have heard it said, but I say to you, and today he's going to challenge our value system and I think, while we know that, as Christians, the tug is so strong for us to say no to the, to the buy me now culture. Really, what we're talking about is how Jesus wants us to say no to the buy-me-now culture. Really, what we're talking about is how Jesus wants us to live for one person and that's him.
Kelly Kinder:Chuck Colson, way back in 1991, made me think of this, this idea between ethics and morality. Chuck Colson, if you remember him, if you're old enough to remember him, he was involved as a cabinet member in the Nixon administration, president Nixon's administration, and the result of that was, as many of you know, was the Watergate scandal, and back then it was a pretty big deal. I don't know that it compares anything with what's going on today, but Chuck Colson was basically convicted of the crimes that he was involved in in the Watergate scandal. He was put in prison and he spent a number of years there and during the prison time he actually came to Christ. He became a Christian and he kind of, for that time after that, began to teach and preach about what God had shown him, as he had changed his value system.
Kelly Kinder:And he discussed the difference back in 1991 at a lecture at the Harvard Business School. And they tell the lecturer why Harvard can't teach ethics. And he argues that ethics, he says, is rooted in a transcendent moral order, while morals are more subjective and influenced by societal and individual beliefs. So in other words, morals are what is so it's what you see but ethics are what ought to be. So essentially we have, I think, in our society so rejected the truths of Scripture that our nation has essentially become demoralized. So when truth is rejected or it's put down, it's made less than what it should be.
Kelly Kinder:Guess what we have? We have cultural chaos, because nobody knows which end is up. And as the Old Testament described those who lived in that day like this they did what was right in their own eyes, everybody did what was right in their own eyes. And so, if you haven't realized it by now, we're living in a culture whose value system is more distorted and perverted than I think I've ever seen in our history. So what are values? Values are fundamental beliefs that guide us or motivate us to think. That is our attitudes and how we live, that is our behaviors. Values are like I guess you'd say they're like our moral compass, and so if our life is aligned with Jesus' values, guess what we're going to? Our moral compass is going to point us always to the right thing. It's kind of what Cody said this morning. We had really two other messages this morning, derek and Abby and Cody, so we're just thankful for what God is going to show us this morning. I hope you'll be listening.
Kelly Kinder:Let's kind of look at this Matthew 7, 24. I just want to remind you the scripture. We're going to look at chapter 6 of Matthew, but I want to go back to what really the thrust of this whole sermon is about, and I said this last time when I spoke Matthew 7, 24. Matthew 7, 24, everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. So, with these words in ringing in our ears, let's look at Matthew 6. We're going to look at verses 19 through 24.
Kelly Kinder:Where is your treasure? Jesus speaking, do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal, for where your treasure is there, your heart will be also. The eye is the lamp of the body, so if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, 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 that darkness? 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.
Kelly Kinder:Let's pray, father, spirit of God, lord, we ask that you would open the Scripture today. Lord, as we hear your words, lord, we ask that you would open the scripture today, lord, as we hear your words, lord, we ask that you would leave no area of our lives that would keep us from following you. With a whole heart, lord, I just pray that we would be like those first servants who were told Lord do whatever he tells you. And when they obeyed you turned water into wine. So, lord, transform us by your Word today. Speak to us, holy Spirit, in Jesus' name, amen.
Kelly Kinder:Let me just say up front, really, just so you don't get the idea, because when you hear the title when is your Treasure? You may think this is a sermon about money. That's part of it, but really this is not about wealth. Primarily. It's really about what we would say is our ability to follow Christ. It's about absolute discipleship. So, jesus' words, if you, we what he's saying here. They cover a lot of issues of the heart which we don't have to count time to cover all these, but let me just kind of mention them because the tendency, as I said, is to live for the here and now. It's what we see. We have blinders on and that's the mentality of getting all you can and canning all you get.
Kelly Kinder:We have words for it. You've heard them probably Covetousness, wanting that car, that house, those clothes, that whatever is on your heart, and it just keeps you focused on that. If I could just get that, if I could just have that covetousness. It's really what you say would be you're wanting what someone else has that you don't have. You want their car, you want their house, you want whatever. That's covetousness.
Kelly Kinder:And then materialism. There's a word we've heard. It's simply the unsatisfied desire to have more. And it goes unsatisfied because we always want more and we want more and we want more. And then that phrase worldly desire. Worldly desire when we delight in our treasures more than God. And when I was writing those words I thought well, that sounds kind of old-fashioned. And it might sound old-fashioned, really even out of touch for many people, maybe a lot of people talking about those ideas. But what do they do? They reveal the critical issues that are going on inside of us, in our heart, that we don't talk about, and more for sure we won't admit. And they keep us from the abundant life which Jesus is talking about here. So we make trade-offs, but we don't know what we're trading off.
Kelly Kinder:Someone said the fight of faith is the fight to keep your heart contented in Christ, to really believe and keep on believing that he will meet every need and satisfy every longing. Do you believe that? Well, I'm hoping I'm going to convince you a little bit of that today. This is what Jesus is going to convince us of here and think about. Just keep in mind who his audience is. Here he was speaking to people who didn't have a lot. These were probably poor people, and you get the idea sometimes that people that Jesus spoke to didn't even know where their next meal was coming from. They just followed him around because he had the words of life. So these are probably not rich people by our standards of life, so these are probably not rich people by our standards, and yet Jesus is telling even them these things. How much more do we need to hear it in a culture like ours and I thought about this.
Kelly Kinder:So you know, wealth is relative, isn't it? It's kind of like what may be considered wealthy by our standards may, or someone else's standards may just be what we need on a daily basis in our culture. For example, in some places there are people who and it's like I'd love to have a car, and in that culture they either walk or they ride bicycles right, and so we think a car is a necessity, and maybe it is in our culture. It's the way we get around. How many of us would love to walk to work? That'd be hard, wouldn't it? It's funny what we deem wants versus needs, isn't it? And you know it's kind of interesting too. It's like okay years ago, I think. You know it's kind of interesting too. It's like okay years ago, I think you know, when everybody got cell phones. It's like, wow, everybody wants a cell phone. You know, I don't think there's probably anywhere in the world somebody I see people in the jungles of deep dark Africa who have a cell phone. It's like everybody's got a cell phone.
Kelly Kinder:What I'm saying, the point, is that wealth is relative. What's not relative is our attitude toward it, and this is what Jesus is going to get to. So let's see what he has to say to us this morning, what's relevant for us to hear, and what does he do here? He's basically given us these words in contrasting choices, and he presents three of them. There are two treasures, on earth and in heaven, two bodily conditions light and darkness and then two masters God and possessions. And what Jesus says is make a choice, because you cannot sit on the fence. Let's look at it First of all. Jesus presents us with a choice, because you cannot sit on the fence. Let's look at it First of all. Jesus presents us with a choice of treasures. This is in verses 19 through 21. And the first one is in verse 19.
Kelly Kinder:He says essentially stop accumulating earthly treasures. Here's the words Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. And the verb tense there is. Jesus is saying something in the original that says You're doing this, stop. This is something they were already doing. He's telling them to cease doing it. Stop doing this, stop accumulating earthly treasures.
Kelly Kinder:And you know, in that day people didn't have a closet full of clothes like we do. So when you think about what he says here where a moth and rust destroy, a moth eating a hole in their clothes would be disaster. What if your whole closet full of clothes got wiped out by some insects? This is what's in their mind. Or he says or rust, rust the word here is the word for rot or decay. Because guess what If I left my lawnmower outside in the weather? Eventually I wouldn't have to touch it, but it would waste completely away. This is the nature of things. Anything left to itself deteriorates.
Kelly Kinder:Today, nothing we buy, think about it. Nothing we buy is made to last, and yet we put great, great value on it. What do they call that? Planned obsolescence? Is that what the term is. Yeah, so there are no banks in that day, and so we have places to put our money.
Kelly Kinder:But in that day, what do they do? Well, he says there where thieves break in and steal. And that day, the way to put your money away safely, they would go along and find a place, walking along, and they'd dig a hole in the ground and cover it up they knew where it was, but hopefully nobody else did or they would dig a hole in the soft sides of the clay houses they lived in and put it in the walls. And what he's saying. That literally says where thieves break through and steal. So their worry was that the thief would get inside and steal their life savings by digging through the walls in their homes. And so there's this kind of fear for all of us that what we have we might lose. So we got to protect it, and that's probably true in our culture.
Kelly Kinder:But what is really? What's Jesus getting at here? It's not. That's just kind of the surface meaning. What is Jesus talking about here? Oh, we know this. He's not telling us that we can't have nice things.
Kelly Kinder:The Bible tells us that Jesus, or God, has provided everything richly for us. To what Enjoy. He's not telling us we shouldn't have nice things. He's also not saying that we shouldn't save for a rainy day. You know, if you look through the Old Testament you see the passage in Scripture that talks about the ant. It says go to the ant you sluggard, see how he gathers food in the summer and he stores it away for the winter. That's a principle for us. So he's not saying don't save for the rainy day. And we're also told that we're also to provide for our family. If your family has a need, you're the one, if you're in the family, to provide for them if you can. And we have to save for those kinds of things and help for those kind of things.
Kelly Kinder:So now Jesus is warning us something else. He's warning us against finding our greatest satisfaction in the things of this world. And there are two really practical reasons for this. He gives them to us. Number one is earthly treasures are unreliable and they're easily lost. I mean, you can lose your wealth in a heartbeat if you're not careful. Proverbs 23, 4 and 5 says don't wear yourself out trying to get rich. Be wise enough to know when to quit and some people never know when to quit In the blink of an eye. It goes on to say wealth disappears for it will sprout wings and fly away like an eagle. And how many people have lost their fortunes? And they didn't ever expect to? Economic downturns, poor business decisions, online fraud which is a big deal nowadays, right or just simply basic financial mismanagement. All those things can happen and we can lose our earthly wealth. But Jesus said it's unreliable and it's easily lost. There's another practical reason Jesus tells us to stop accumulating our earthly treasures. He says, secondly, material wealth is worthless beyond this life. Luke 12, 16 through 21,.
Kelly Kinder:Jesus tells a parable about a man who is building into and now I'm not going to go through the read it for you, but he's basically he's telling the parable and saying this guy is into building bigger and bigger and better and better barns, bigger and better barns, and he's filling them up with all of his treasure. And God comes to him and says you don't know, your very life is going to be required of you this very night. And what did he do? He spent his life investing here and he didn't have anything for eternity. Jesus' point is that you cannot take it with you, but you can send it on ahead. So wealth is temporal, it's not eternal. This is what Jesus is getting at. He's trying to tell us the wisdom of making the right choice here, and sometimes we're so blind to this that we fail to consider the eternal.
Kelly Kinder:There's an old story about an old miser who called the doctor and lawyer and minister who was his friends. Three friends a doctor, a miser, or in, and lawyer and minister, who were his friends. Three friends a doctor, a miser and this lawyer and minister to the deathbed. He's about to die and he said they say you can't take it with you, but I'm going to try. So here are three envelopes and each one of you I'm going to give $30,000 to, and what I want you to do with the envelopes, I want you, when I die and they lower my casket into the ground, throw in the envelopes. And when the old man died, sure enough, each one of those three, they threw in the envelope as requested. But on the way home after the funeral service, the minister texted the other two and confessed I needed the money for the church. So I took out $10,000 and threw only $20,000 into the grave. And the doctor read that and he texted back. I too have to confess, I'm building a clinic. He texts it back. I too have to confess, I'm building a clinic. So I took out $20,000 and only threw in $10,000. And the lawyer said and he read that he said, gentlemen, I am so ashamed of you, I threw in my credit card for the whole amount.
Kelly Kinder:The old miser's fixation on trying to have a scheme to get his wealth to follow him didn't work too well. It didn't even work well even at his own burial, because his friends were so materialistic. Stop accumulating earthly treasures, j Jesus said. Instead, what does he say? Wisdom, start stockpiling heavenly treasures Verse 20,. Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven. Literally make a treasure for yourself. Make a treasure for yourself. Heavenly treasures are a wiser and more secure investment than you might ever believe, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.
Kelly Kinder:Jesus' examples that he's given here lead, I think, to a deeper principle, which is what we might call the treasure principle. It's in verse 21. And he makes those examples and he comes to say this. He says why. For where your treasure is verse 21, there your heart will be also. In other words, put your treasure in the right place in the kingdom is what he's saying and your heart will be in the right place to live a life now in a way that will pay off later. Here's the principle, this idea. He's not just talking about money and wealth, he's talking to me, he's giving us wisdom about the right priorities and he's basically saying your heart will be wherever your treasure is placed. So if we put it in the wrong place, it'll reveal itself.
Kelly Kinder:And he uses that word treasure kind of in a really broad way. We think of it always as about financial and money stuff. It could include potentially a lot of stuff that we call our treasure Family, the position at your job, artistic pursuits that you have, relationships that you think are so important in comparison. Maybe it's social media, and that's where you put all your time and attention. It could even be a memory that you hold as your treasure. If anything in the world is everything to you, it is an earthly treasure. So what is your treasure? The treasure is what you love the most. Your treasure is what you love the most. Your treasure is what you love the most. What do you love the most this morning? Now, jesus moves on from a choice of treasures to a choice of visions In verses 22 and 23,. He says in verse 22, the eye is the lamp of the body. What an obscure line. What an obscure statement.
Kelly Kinder:Jesus is not giving us a lesson on ophthalmology. He's not trying to tell us how to better read an eye chart at the doctor's office. This is not physical stuff. He's talking in spiritual terms and he's using a metaphor from their culture. He's really referring to the way we see things, the way we see life, the way we view life and what he's saying. Just as your heart will follow your treasure, so also your body, that is, your whole life, will follow your eye. When he's talking about his heart, he's not talking about we think of. Well, the heart is the affections he's talking about, not just your affections. He's talking about your whole life and what your eye, if you look at the things he's saying, your eye will follow. Your body will follow what your eye is focused on.
Kelly Kinder:So we're intended to understand here that having the right outlook on life. It enables us to orient ourselves in the right way, and the opposite is true. If you're focused, if your outlook on life is not in the right way, it's not aligned to what Jesus teaches. Guess what You're going to be living a life of darkness. Now think about that. Because you use that idea of an eye, you could have a cataract, you could have floaters, you could have problems in your eye, and those could be fixed by the doctor. But this spiritual problem, there's only one doctor that can fix that. His name is Jesus. It's a spiritual vision and our outlook on life will determine the direction of our life. It's so interesting to me how so many times we get our outlook our philosophy of life is about the values of certain things here and we get ourselves caught up in so many problems.
Kelly Kinder:The Scripture says the love of money is the root of all evil. No, it doesn't say that. It says the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. So it is a danger for us. If we have our focus in the wrong place, we're going to live lives that will really be disoriented and going in the wrong direction, and you don't think that happens. It happens a lot, but he says so. If your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light. In other words, you're going to have an enlightened sense of the direction you should take in life, because your treasure is in the right place. 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 that darkness? So, these two perspectives on the eye, there's what he calls here the healthy eye. That's verse 22.
Kelly Kinder:And this is an interesting word, because if your eye is healthy it might not be the best translation it can mean generous, literally. If your eye is generous, if you well, I'll give you a reference Proverbs 22, 9. Whoever has a good eye will be blessed, for he shares his bread with the poor, and so what you have, if you have a generous eye, is you live with open-handed liberality to people. Sometimes we're so tight-fisted with what we have, god has to pry our fingers off of it. And then what it is? It's really painful when we lose it. So it could be generous. The other word it can mean and it typically means this is single.
Kelly Kinder:If your eye is single and you have these varying translations when you look at it, it's either generous or single, sometimes healthy, but single it's the idea of being single-minded in your focus, focused on one thing. Or we could put it like do you have one passion in your life that you're focused on? And Jesus says, as we'll find there's only one that we're to have and it's Jesus. You know, I was interested in how this kind of came to me this week because my little two-year-old granddaughter my wife will kill me because I don't have it exactly right. Two-year-old granddaughter my wife will kill me because I don't have it exactly right, but she is.
Kelly Kinder:Ever since she was able to sort of start talking, she has been focused on fire hydrants and I thought why is that? Well, maybe they're about her height, you know. And so everywhere we go it's like hydrant, hydrant. There's a hydrant, you know, and we were driving down the road just the other day and she's pointing out hydrants everywhere. That's all she sees. And I said her name's Lily and I said Lily, you have such a good eye and I thought how true that is. When our eye is single, we see Jesus as the most valuable thing to our lives. That's all we see. The picture here you can see how thrilled she is with her hydrant. The neighbor across the street from where they lived got wind of her focus on hydrants and so they went out and decorated the hydrant in her neighborhood and had her pose for this picture and she's absolutely thrilled. That's a good eye focused on the right thing. And then Jesus talks about the bad eye, and you might think of the bad, the unhealthy, the diseased eye. He ends up saying people with that kind of vision, that kind of outlook, that kind of focus can't see, can't see much at all. They're clearly blind.
Kelly Kinder:David Brooks, in a 2023 article in the Atlantic entitled how America Got Mean that's an intriguing title, isn't it? How America Got Mean makes this observation we're enmeshed in some sort of emotional, relational and spiritual crisis, and it undergirds our political dysfunction and the general crises of our democracy. What is going on, he's, of our democracy. What is going on? Over the past few years, different social observers have offered different stories to explain the rise of hatred, anxiety and despair. So he's looking out on our culture and he says what is going on. And so he goes on to touch on a variety of proposed answers from people who were supposed experts, from technology to sociology, from demographics to economics. And these answers, he said, well, they may have something to do with it, maybe have a measure of influence, but he writes something beyond this that I think really touches on the biblical narrative and the way the Bible teaches us about what's going on. He writes, our society has become one in which people feel licensed to give their selfishness free reign.
Kelly Kinder:We live in a society that's terrible at moral formation. Moral formation, as I will use that stuffy sounding term here, comprises three things First, helping people learn to restrain their selfishness. Second, teaching basic social and ethical skills. And third, helping people find a purpose in life. Morally formative institutions hold up a set of ideals and I thought, god, that's why we're here, that's why the church is here. And is it a statement against how poorly we have done this of late? You know? Because the culture's values have spread into the church and this is now needed to be retaught to us as Christians, who would have thought what are we talking about? Nothing less than the gospel of the kingdom. Our eye needs to be made healthy again. So now Jesus goes on to the core issue, which is our last thing, and what is he doing?
Kelly Kinder:I felt like this, even for me. I just thought, okay, and this is a good thing, every time a preacher preaches, it ought to go through him. I was discouraged this way. I was like Lord, you're talking to me, you're stepping on my toes, and so Jesus has gone through this kind of stepping on our toes from the little toe all the way now to the big toe. And this is the bottom line. He's telling us to choose the right treasure, then choose the right vision and now to choose the right loyalties Verse 24,.
Kelly Kinder: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. And I think Jesus just knew the emotional bond that wealth and money has on us. And there's a spiritual connection between our money sometimes and what God has wanted to show us here, how we think about money. You know, I don't know about you, but I've been involved in a few settling of wills over the years and I've been amazed at what sometimes normal peaceful people will turn into sometimes from Jekyll to Hyde, when money becomes the subject. I got to get mine. Maybe you've been a part of one of those.
Kelly Kinder:See, the question is do you possess treasures or do the treasures possess you? And the danger for us is that we let the pursuit of what we deem our treasure to really substitute for our pursuit of God. You know what the Bible calls that Idolatry, calls that Idolatry Our treasure becomes our substitute for the thing we should love the most. He says you cannot serve God in money. He doesn't say you should not try. He says you cannot serve God in money. Why? Because, ultimately, this is a matter of worship. Why? Because, ultimately, this is a matter of worship. It's a matter of worship. You have to choose. Because why Jesus won't compete with lesser loyalties, lesser gods, money? I've figured this Money is a good servant but a poor master, and so what he's telling us is, instead of letting it be your master, make money your servant.
Kelly Kinder:In fact, he says that in Luke 16. He says go out and use your money to buy friends for the kingdom. Don't let it be your master. There's only one of me. Don't let it be your master. There's only one of me.
Kelly Kinder:Well, I want to finish up by drawing our attention to a couple of short, really short parables that he talks about later in the Gospel of Matthew, and they kind of emphasize the incomparable value of eternal life and the kingdom of God. Listen to these. Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field which a man found and covered up. Then, in his joy, he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls who, on finding one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it. And so the true riches that Christ offers us, they're not material, they're spiritual, they're not temporary, they're eternal.
Kelly Kinder:A number of years ago you know, it's kind of like, I think, of the scripture, it's like from the mouth of infants, you have ordained praise, the Bible says. And years ago, when my youngest daughter was, we were sitting around, I remember, downstairs on the couch and I think we were just, we were talking about Jesus. And at the end of our conversation and she's like three years old she looked over at my wife and I and she said Jesus is our greatest treasure. And I looked at my wife and she looked at me, me and I was like that was a God thing, jesus is our greatest treasure. And to those with spiritual eyes, jesus is our greatest treasure. The problem is with so many we never buy into that truth. But this is true wisdom that Jesus has given us here today. Let me kind of tell you how Jesus is our treasure and we'll end here in just a moment.
Kelly Kinder:Several places in Scripture where Jesus is talked about. In this way, the unsearchable riches of Christ cannot be fully searched out because, it says, in Christ all the fullness of the deity dwells in bodily form. So the riches of Christ include think about it all that God is. The unsearchable riches include the wisdom of God, the glory of God, the truth of God, the life of God and the love of God. The Bible says in Christ God has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing. The Bible says in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. And the Bible says in Christ God has given us everything we need for a godly life. That's a lot of treasure and we haven't even scratched the surface.
Kelly Kinder:So how do you measure your treasure? How do you know where your treasure is? How do you measure it? That's just a question of what brings you the most pleasure. Let me read this again the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field which a man found and covered up. Then I hope you didn't miss this. Then in his joy it says he goes and sells all that he has and buys the field. He is thrilled to transfer his earthly wealth to pursue something that is eternal.
Kelly Kinder:John Piper wrote this makes pleasure also the whistleblower of your heart. If something sinful gives you pleasure, it's not a pleasure problem, it's a treasure problem. Your pleasure mechanism is likely functioning just fine. It's what you love. That's out of whack and pleasure is outing you. Pleasure is the meter in your heart that measures how valuable, how precious someone or something is to you. Pleasure is the measure of your treasure, and Jesus ends his part there on.
Kelly Kinder:Where is your treasure? I want to ask you this morning, let's just take a minute here, because I feel like the Holy Spirit has already pinpointed something, or someone who has taken the place of Jesus, has taken the place of God, and I'm going to have Zach come up and just play just for a minute. This looks like oh, you've changed your appearance, zach. Okay, so you're, I swapped. So thank you, tyler.
Kelly Kinder:If God has spoken to you, if the Holy Spirit has spoken to you about where your heart lies, that you have placed value in something else other than Jesus this is for Christians then I want you to come down and just with your coming down, just give that back to Jesus and just say Jesus, I take you for my treasure. It's really simple. I mean, you're not doing this for me. You're doing this as God has spoken to you. You looking for some other treasure in your life, something more valuable than Jesus. So right now, as Tyler plays, would you make that transaction with the Lord?
Kelly Kinder:And then this is for those who don't know Jesus If you've never trusted Christ, you've never seen him as someone who is worth trading this life for eternity. For it's real simple. Jesus just says. He says confess your sins, know that you have sinned and he has died for your sins. He died on the cross to take away your sins and he will give you eternal life. It's just a simple thing, a simple act of faith that you come and you say Jesus, I want you instead of me in my life. Would you just give your life to Jesus this morning? We're going to take just a minute. Anybody who wants to come, let's do business with the Lord this morning.
Speaker 2:Thank you, jesus, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, Amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen.
Kelly Kinder:Amen, amen, amen. At the end of our time today, there'll be people down here. If you didn't make a decision right now, didn't want to do that right now, there'll be people here who would love to share how you can know Jesus. And if there's any other prayers, there'll be a prayer team down here today to pray for you. We always love to do this because you know the Bible says don't go to the Word, don't hear the Word, like you're looking at yourself in the mirror. Sometimes we go to the mirror and the Bible makes this analogy we turn right around, we forget what we look like and I believe God has shown many of us here today what we look like. So do business with him this week. Father, we thank you for your word this morning. We ask you, lord, to apply these truths to our heart. Lord, that we would find in you our greatest treasure. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.
