Treasuring Rightly and Working Distinctively
Preached by Mike Grenier
September 6, 2015
Matthew 6:16–21
“And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 17 But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, 18 that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.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.
Introduction
a. Work – where have we been and where are we going this morning?
Let me just start by saying how excited I am that we are doing this little mini-sermon series on work. We can, I think, without even realizing it, subtly and unintentionally communicate to you through the myriad of activities going on at church and the focus on the all the things we’re excited about here (many good things!) that the time you spend through the majority of your week in your workplaces is somehow second rate, or lacks in meaning or significance compared to the “real” work of the church. This couldn’t be further from the truth. And if there is anything you hear loud and clear through this mini-series, let it be that all work – both sacred and secular – can be used profoundly by God for his glory. The church should be a launching pad for you to go back into your workplaces ready to integrate your faith and work and apply the gospel to every area of life.Last week, Jason kicked off our two-part sermon series on work by looking at this very question – Why does our work matter to God? Specifically, he took us to the words of Paul, and showed us how God created and ordained work before the fall for our good, and how a job done well can image the creativity of God and so be glorifying to God. Our God created with his hands in the dirt. Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ came into the world not as an aristocrat but as a carpenter making tables. And so, our work of all kinds, when considered rightly, matters – and can matter eternally.And so, that settles it. Work is great right? With your new-found meaning in work you get up each morning completely energized. Not exactly. Sin hasn’t just infected our hearts – it’s affected all of creation, including our work.
Genesis 3: 17-19
cursed is the ground because of you;in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;and you shall eat the plants of the field.19 By the sweat of your faceyou shall eat bread,Thorns and thistles. Our work, and our own hearts while we work are constantly battling with the effects of sin. This makes work often seem fruitless, pointless, or overly burdensome. You may have long stretches where coming to work seems like pure drudgery. What do we do about this?And so this morning, we’ll ask: How does God and the gospel matter to my work in this fallen world? What effect should the good news of the work of Jesus Christ have on the way we work? And our roadmap for this morning is the following: 3 things that Jesus would have us think about through his words to us in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6:
We all treasure something in our work.
What we treasure drives the way in which we work.
In order to work differently, the focus of our treasuring must change.
Read verses 19 and 20 with me again:
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.
What is Jesus saying here?
I. We All Treasure Something in our Work (context – vs 16-18 & 19)
Let’s imagine for a second that I come up to you after the service today, a look of urgency on my face, and I tell you: “Look, I need a favor. I really need you to meet me in Pittsburgh tomorrow morning at 3AM. Can you do that for me?” What would your reaction be, besides being a little creeped out? Hopefully, you’d say, well, Mike – I need you to give me a good reason to meet you in Pittsburgh at 3AM on a Monday morning before work. I might do that – but need a little background before making a decision! Show me why that’s a valuable use of my time.And that’s a completely reasonable response. Driving to Pittsburgh in the middle of the night would cost significant time and energy – and we wouldn’t want to spend that on something devoid of purpose. And yet – I wonder, do we hold the same standards for bigger things in life? Like our work, for instance? We spend 8 hours a day for most of our lives (or more, in our workaholic culture) working and toiling – but, to what end? For what reason? What, ultimately is our end-game, our drive, our treasure that lies at the heart of our work?In the portion of scripture we just read, Jesus is driving us to ask this question – where are we laying up treasures? The Sermon on the Mount: is there anything more beautiful and seemingly so far out of reach than the type of human being Jesus calls us to be here? Granted, these verses more directly speak to the topic of physical treasure - money and possessions. But Jesus is also making a broader and deeper point – one about our hearts.Look with me again at verses 16-18:
And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 17 But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, 18 that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
Friends, Jesus does not “spider-web” in his thoughts when he talks. He’s not randomly changing subject from fasting to treasuring. He follows up this section on selfish religiosity with these verses on treasuring for a reason. At the heart of this fasting for show is a misplaced treasure -- a treasure located in an external moral appearance and the nodding approval of others rather than the pleasure of our Heavenly Father. And ultimately, Jesus says, these sorts of earthly treasures fall short and don’t last.And so, using two examples from both “sacred” and “secular” areas of life – possessions and religiosity – Jesus is showing us that our actions in all areas of our lives are driven by what we love and value – treasure – most. Each of us – whether we believe in Christ or not - has a supreme love, an ultimate value that lies at the heart of why we do what we do and where we spend our time, our resources, and our energy. To say it more starkly: we’re all worshipping something. This has profound application to the way we work.But first, Jesus is calling us to consider - where are we “storing up treasures” as we work? Do we work primarily to get ahead and achieve a successful career so that we know that we’re “somebody”? Do we work primarily to accrue power over others and so to feel in control? Do we work primarily to secure a life of comfort and possessions for our family or for ourselves? Or perhaps we work to know that we’re better than others – to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, and so achieve a moral status of not being “like those moochers”? Or maybe we work primarily to “find ourselves” and “follow our dreams.”? Or perhaps we work to hear the praise and approval of others telling us how capable we are? Jesus is asking us to consider what our treasure is, and where it’s located.And he’s saying that, like the religious person whose ultimate treasure is their moral status that their religious activities accrue for them, earthly treasures don’t last. Jesus is saying, if our treasures in our work are not locating in something beyond the physical world, then they’re extremely vulnerable, and ultimately will fail us.
“where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal,”
Have you given this thought? If there is no God, nothing beyond this life, then everything you and I have ever done in our work will be eventually swallowed up by time and forgotten. Someone more talented will surely come along. Our accomplishments, while they may make a splash for a little while, will ultimately be forgotten. Our positions of power will eventually be transferred to other hands. And eventually, the sun itself will burn out and anything you and I or any other worker has ever done will be turned to dust. Bleak, you say? If there is no God, its true. You’re driving to Pittsburgh at 3AM for no reason. Earthly treasures are vulnerable.David Foster Wallace, a gifted and well-known secular novelist and speaker – not a Christian man – beautifully illustrates this during a commencement speech he gave some years ago:
In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship… If you worship money and things — if they are where you tap real meaning in life — then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you… Worship power — you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart — you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on. Look, the insidious thing about these forms of worship …it is that they are unconscious. They are default-settings.
And so, my challenge to you under the first point is two-fold:1. Have you thought about where your treasure is in your work?And 2. Where are you locating your ultimate value in your work – is it in something that will last, or something that will fade?Let’s continue:
II. What We Treasure Drives How We Work (vs 21)
21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Like the caboose at the end of a train, Jesus says that our heart follows what it treasures. “Follow the money trail.” Jesus says, and you will know what your heart really treasures, what it really values at its core. A sobering, humbling thought.But what does the Bible mean by the heart? Modern readers hear the word heart in the Bible and tend to think of something akin to a Disney movie - “follow your heart!” – meaning simply our feelings or emotions. This couldn’t be further than the biblical concept, which refers to the heart as nothing less than the seat of our emotions, but is much more rich and comprehensive. Let’s go on a quick survey of some Bible verses that mention the heart.Proverbs 23:6-7Do not eat the bread of a man who is stingy;[b]do not desire his delicacies,7 for he is like one who is inwardly calculating.[c]“Eat and drink!” he says to you,but his heart is not with you.Ok, so the heart “is inwardly calculating”, it thinks. That’s interesting. Let’s keep going.
Romans 10:9 – “because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
Ok, so our words spring from the beliefs of the heart. It’s the source of all our words. Another one.Proverbs 3:5
Trust in the Lord with all your heart,and do not lean on your own understanding.
The heart puts its trust in things. That sounds like more than emotions!1 Peter 1:22
“love one another earnestly from a pure heart,”
A pure heart produces love.We could go through many more. And so we see that the biblical concept of the heart refers to the seat of the emotions, but also the will, and the mind – the core of who we are and what we value. Tim Keller sums it up well in his recent book on preaching:
"Whatever captures the heart's trust and love also controls the feelings and behavior. What the heart most wants, the mind finds reasonable, the emotions find valuable, and the will finds doable...What makes people into what they are is the order of their loves--what they love most, more, less, and least. That is more fundamental to who you are than even the beliefs to which you mentally subscribe. Your loves show what you actually believe in, not what you say you do. People, therefore, change not by merely changing their thinking but by changing what they love most. Such a shift requires nothing less than changing your thinking, but it entails much more...Change happens not just by giving the mind new arguments but also by feeding the imagination new beauties." -Tim Keller, Preaching p. 159
What does this have to do with work? More than I have time to delve into here. If our ultimate value and treasure in our work is the applause and well-thinking of our co-workers, we’ll be unable to stand up for the right thing when pressured to do something that goes against God’s word. Or when we make a mistake that would reflect poorly on us, instead of admitting our mistake, making it right, and moving on - we cover it over or hide it – or even lie about it. Friends – this is profound! “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”As Christians, we can say on Sundays that we believe we’re saved from the penalty of sin by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone - something that should humble us, and drain us of feelings of superiority over anyone. But if we hit the office Monday morning and we’re completely unable to show grace and mercy to our direct reports, or are completely unable to receive constructive criticism during a review, or are so hungry for accolades that we’re unable to celebrate the successes of others and help them develop, our hearts are likely clinging to earthly treasures rather than heavenly ones. And so we work in such a way that is basically no different than the world around us.Jeremiah 17:10“I the Lord search the heartand test the mind,[a]to give every man according to his ways,according to the fruit of his deeds.”It’s no surprise, then that God looks at the heart, not the external – as Jesus demonstrated with the fasting religious folks at the beginning of our passage today.Let me be honest here - It has been a humbling and scary thing to prepare this message on this topic. If I’m honest, my heart is wrapped up in all kinds of treasures that don’t last. My motivations in my work are not gospel motivations. I recently moved into a team lead role, leading a team of 4 IT professionals. I’ve been shocked at how I’m so quick to hoard credit for successes, and to shift blame in my failures. Even the other day I caught myself referring to my team members I lead as “resources”. They’re people, for goodness sake! But I’ve imbibed the culture’s views on the primacy of profit and results – good things, turned into ultimate things where they were never meant to be. Even the language I’ve been using at work reveals what my ultimate treasure is. I’ve been scared to look into my heart as I work and see how sinful it still is, even thought I profess Christ. What hope is there for me, for us?That leads me to my final point. Let’s read vs 19 – 20 again:
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.
III. How the gospel changes what we treasure in our work. (vs 18-19)
Jesus is calling us to change the location of the focus of our treasuring. To treasure the things of heaven, where the things we value are secure and to not fade. But how do we change the location of what we treasure, ultimately?Paul tells us in Colossians 2:3 that in Jesus all treasures are hid. 1 Peter 1:8-9 says:
Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, 9 obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
What does this mean? In order to change what we treasure, Christ himself must become our treasure. To believe in Christ with mere intellectual assent is not enough to unseat the heart’s loves and fundamental treasures – we must fill our hearts with the beauty of what he’s done to the degree that he becomes precious to us. And what has he done?Jesus had all the treasures of heaven at his disposal – he had all the things by right we so aimlessly chase in our work for ourselves – power, comforts, honor, glory. And yet Jesus – the 2nd person of the Trinity, God himself, left these things, set aside his status, was born in a dirty manger to a poor family. Worked with his hands all of his life making tables! All the while loving God with all his heart, mind and soul, and loving his neighbor as himself. Living the life we owe God, but fail to live. And out of love for us, this perfect man went to the cross as a substitute for rebels, for sinners. God created us and gave us the gifts we use in our work, and yet we rejected him and worshipped the very things he created and gave to us as good gifts! We deserved judgment and separation from God, but in Jesus we receive completely unexpected mercy, grace and love when we cling to him in faith. It’s nothing we’ve merited or earned.Do you want to have your heart’s treasures transformed? Look at Jesus on the cross. Look at the perfect justice and perfect love of our Triune God. How can we not be completely blown away by a God like this? How can we not give our lives in service to him?We see in the gospel, this good news, that we’re more sinful and flawed than we ever dared believe (this humbles us to the core), and yet more loved and accepted in Jesus than we ever dared hope if we’ll receive him (this gives us an assurance and an inner-ballast). Ultimately, grace changes everything – including the fundamental treasures of our hearts. In fact, the Bible says that when we come to Christ we’re given a new nature – we’re born again – a nature with new affections and new treasures. And in Jesus, we have a treasure that is not vulnerable and does not spoil, fade or change.So as we land this plane, I’d like to get as practical as possible. The implications are vast and too many to cover comprehensively, but I’ll briefly speak to a few applications to work that I’ve been thinking about as I prepared:1. The gospel transforms how we deal with difficulty and failure in work.In the gospel, we have the approval of God himself through faith in Jesus. We have a rich inheritance in Christ – an eternity with God himself as his son or daughter. We know all things work together for the good of those who love him – we’ve seen this first-hand in Jesus’ love for us. And so the threat of layoff, pay-cut, economic downturn no longer rule us. These things are hard, yes – we may struggle mightily - but we no longer lie and betray others to preserve ourselves. We don’t panic the way our co-workers might when their earthly treasures are threatened. We have an inner poise and ballast. Our treasure is in something different than the comforts of retaining our position.2. The gospel transforms how we respond to feedback in our work.In the gospel, our assurance and sense of self is wrapped up in who we are in Christ. He is our righteousness, and this is not of our own doing. We’ve seen our sin clearly, and so we work with humility – expecting critique and even welcoming it, acknowledging that we do not always see ourselves clearly or do things as well as we should. The gospel should drain us of defensiveness or panic as we deal with criticism of our work – after all, we have the approval through Christ of the only one that really matters. And it should lead us to expect helpful criticism from non-Christians. We’ve been saved by grace – not by being “better” than our non-Christian co-workers, and so we should be open to finding wisdom through common grace from God in all people.3. The gospel transforms how we value people in our work.What model of leadership did Jesus demonstrate in the gospel? Servant leadership. He welcomed us, even when we didn’t deserve it. He occupies the greatest position of authority in the universe, and he lived a life of humble service. Do our dispositions as team leaders, and stay at home moms, and executives, and co-workers reflect the welcome and grace we’ve received in Jesus? He didn’t treat us like a “project”, or a “number” or a “resource”, like I caught myself doing recently. This leads us to lead and treat people as people, rather than a product out of which to obtain results, goods and services. This means we listen, we seek to develop, and we care for those God has entrusted us with in our jobs.4. The gospel transforms the amount and the quality of our work:Colossians 3:23 says:
Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men.
Because we’ve been saved by grace (nothing we’ve done), we owe everything to our Lord and Savior. And we should work for the Lord – for ultimately he is our market segment, and our boss. This keeps us from under work – we work wholeheartedly even when the boss isn’t around. But it also keeps us from over-work, since money and the praise of others are no longer our driving treasure in work. We can walk away if need be.I could go on and on. There are so many wonderful implications.One more quote from the book Every Good Endeavor (p.220-221):
“Only if Jesus is your treasure are you truly rich, for he is the only currency that cannot be devalued. And only if he is your Savior are you truly successful, for status with him is the only status that can’t be lost.”
I’d like to close with a verse from 1 Peter, which calls us to see what we have in the gospel, and so live and work as a different people:
1 Peter 2:9-10 – “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession [his treasure], that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”
