Two Treasures

Treasures on Earth Versus Treasures in Heaven

Well, this morning, we're back in Matthew chapter 6. As we make our way toward the end of this chapter, we begin a new section here in verse 19 and 21. And really, the next two messages that come from verses 19 to 24, we'll see is actually being connected as a unit.

And so I've titled the message this morning, Two Treasures. And as we move forward, we'll see in the next message, there's two I's, a good I and a bad I, and then two masters. And so we see this theme, this tension.

This morning, two treasures, and then two I's, two masters. This holds together verses 19 through 24. This morning, we'll be looking at verses 19 through 21. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, 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.

You can see in the tension between two treasures, treasures on earth, treasures in heaven, two I's, a good I or an evil I, two masters. The master that's good, that's worthy of service, the bad master that holds one in bondage, that as we saw even at the retreat, ultimately there are only two ways to live.

Scripture, when you get to the Psalms or you look at the book of Proverbs, what we call the wisdom writings, it says in all the many ways that people may choose to live, all the ways that they establish themselves, the paths of work and relationships that they choose, it doesn't matter how varied, how unique those paths may be, everyone's life essentially boils down to two ways.

There are two ways to live. And as we said at the retreat, no one should think that somehow they're sitting at the fork in the road waiting to choose which of those two ways they want to live. You're born on one of those ways.

You're born on the wrong way because of Adam's sin. So, no one breaks out the plastic lawn chair and parks it right in front of the fork between the two paths and says, you know, I'm just going to kind of sit here and wait and really deliberate and think and about 20 years when I'm ready to go down the godly path, I guess I'll go down that path.

That doesn't exist. You're either walking on the wrong path or you're walking on the path that leads to life. We see that held out in verses 19 through 24. Jesus, as we'll see in each of these passages, is drawing out this contrast, this tension, boiling it all down to the fact that there's ultimately two ways to live.

There's ultimately two positions that your heart will be in, ultimately two ways that you'll look and see the things in the world around you, ultimately two masters, one of whom you must serve. Last week we were considering this matter of fasting and we spoke about having the mere appearance, which really is where we began chapter six in Matthew, just having a pretense, a show before the eyes of men rather than having the appearance before God, which is to say having the the awareness that I'm ever living before God, my desire is to appear before Him, to live for Him.

And so that's the difference between the mere appearance of Christianity versus the substance of Christianity. And Jesus drew that out in talking about the way that Christians give, the way that Christians pray, the way that Christians fast in humility and devotion to their Father in Heaven.

These are all ways of getting at what it means to have the substance of faith, to have a real heart, a living faith in God. And that's especially where we're going this morning in verses 19 through 21.

Jesus here in this passage will point to the importance of the heart as a means of revealing our spiritual condition. Let me say that again because it's vitally important. Jesus will point to the importance of the heart and will define what He means by the heart when we get there as the means to reveal our spiritual condition.

In other words, which of the two ways are you on this morning? We're just going to work through this verse by verse. So we'll begin with verse 19 where Jesus describes treasures on earth. He says, do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy, where thieves break in and steal.

Now what does Jesus mean by treasures on earth? Well, Matthew Henry, I think, puts it so well. He says, Christ, having warned against coveting the praise of men, proceeds next to warn us against coveting the wealth of the world.

For those that were fasting and disfiguring themselves, for those that were making a big show out of the way that they were generous, Jesus says, well, they're only living for the sight of men and if that's what they were living for, they have their reward in full.

And so they were coveting the attention of men and here Jesus is warning against coveting the wealth of the world. And Matthew Henry says, here we take heed lest we become hypocrites as well. The fundamental error of the hypocrite is they choose the world as their reward.

This is exactly what Jesus has established up to this point already in chapter 6. Here he says, whatever fortune you may make, whatever riches you may covet, whatever in providence you are able to lay up for yourself, it's not going to last.

As a famous preacher said of old, I've never seen a hearse followed by a U-Haul, right? Doesn't go with you. Even if you were the pharaoh of Egypt and you're literally buried, surrounded by all of your treasure, what good is that to you?

Now you're just in some vault in the MFA and we're all staring at you through plexiglass. None of that treasure meant anything to you. Jesus is saying it will not be preserved, it will not last, you cannot hold on to it.

So don't live your life in a way that you're trying to grasp it. Now in the ancient world, and every now and then I look at news feeds and these types of discoveries happen all of the time, twice a week.

Some farmer in Yorkshire puts his plow into the ground and comes across some broken jar and in it is a coin hoard. And so in the ancient world, you didn't go to the first bank of Nazareth, you didn't have a Gaza credit union.

If you wanted to preserve your wealth, you wouldn't put it into the obvious place like under your mattress, that's what 12 year olds do. You found that perfect spot, five steps away from a certain tree in a certain field and you dug it and then if you were out collecting wheat and you had a stroke, no one knew it was there until about 2 ,000 years later, some Yorkshire farmer puts his plow in the ground and finds 3 ,000 silver coins or 200 gold coins.

These are common discoveries. And Jesus is saying essentially, whatever treasure you're able to lay up, you think of that parable where the servant buries the money that the master gave to him into the ground and he didn't make any interest on it but he preserved it.

He says, look, I buried it and kept it hidden, no one stole from it and the master is upset because it wasn't invested, there was no return upon it. Jesus says, however you store up or lay up treasures for yourself, moth, rust, thieves will eventually get it.

Something's gonna get it. Something's gonna get it, the only one that won't get it is you. Jesus is not teaching, by the way, that believers are to be careless about money. He's not saying, see, none of it matters, it's all an illusion, right?

Money is meaningless. No, Jesus elsewhere and the scripture elsewhere teaches we ought to be good stewards of every earthly resource the Lord chooses to give to us. We view that stewardship as a certain way that God has entrusted us and so throughout Scripture we find the call of, for instance, Proverbs 21, the wise store up foods and oils, fools gulp theirs down.

The idea of wisdom, being a good steward, knowing how to store, knowing how to invest, knowing how to preserve or the wisdom of Proverbs 6. I heard Proverbs 6 a lot as a young boy growing up. When I didn't feel like mowing the lawn on a hot day after school and my dad would take me downstairs and say, son, look to the ant.

That's what Proverbs 6 says. Don't be a sluggard, get out and mow that lawn. Go to the ant, you sluggard, consider its ways and be wise. It has no commander, no ruler, no overseer, but it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest.

And so everywhere we see this godly desire, this godly pattern of being a good steward of whatever God has entrusted you. Some have more to store and to be wise about and steward than others, but we all have something.

To steward.

We all have something that we are called to be wise with. So Jesus is not warning against the wise storing, but the foolish laying up as if it will never be taken from you. That's what Jesus is warning against.

This desire, this striving as though the things that you can acquire and possess will somehow ultimately fulfill you. Somehow you will be satisfied in a way that can never be taken from you. And Jesus says that's foolishness.

Everything will be taken from you. He's in another way, he's warning against covetousness, which is idolatry, as the Scripture.

Says.

And covetousness, by the way, has a twin sister. Her name is discontentment. Here also Jesus is warning against the things that we pursue, the things that we strive after, the things that we seek to grasp as though they could ultimately fulfill us, ultimately satisfy us.

First Timothy 6, Paul writes to this young minister and he says, godliness with contentment is great gain. Contentment is part of godliness. Godliness with contentment is great gain. The gain of the Christian's life is actually not striving after gain, it's being content.

The loss of a Christian life is when you're striving after gain. Godliness with contentment is great gain. And here's what Paul says, here's what he explains, it's much like Matthew 6. We brought nothing into this world and we certainly can carry nothing out of it.

Don't go into the grave with the Rolex, that doesn't do good for you. Pass that down to the grandson or the nephew or the fourth cousin. Someone's got to get that. Nothing you're buried with is of any use to you.

We brought nothing into this world and it's certain we can carry nothing out, but having food and clothing with these things will be content. Where are we going in Matthew 6? Don't worry about what you'll eat or what you'll wear.

Seek the kingdom first.

These things will be added to you. Paul's living life in this way where he says, if I've got something in my stomach and something on my back, with these things I can be content. There's great gain in the godliness of that kind of contentment.

It frees up my life entirely to consider what God puts before me and the people around me and the things that He calls me to do. But, he warns Timothy, those who desire, notice these words, these are the things as we'll see in verse 21 that Jesus is driving home.

He doesn't say, but those who are rich, no, those who desire to be, that's the issue. Those who desire, that's the issue, what the desire of the heart is. Those who desire to be rich fall into temptation in a snare.

And with many foolish and harmful lusts, men drown in destruction and perdition because the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Notice again, it's not money, it's the love of money. It's not being rich, it's the desire to be rich.

These are the snares, the temptations in which most men drown and ruin themselves. Jesus is warning not to drown, not to get into the quicksand of this kind of false desire. The love of money, the desire to grasp things that must be peeled away from your fingers is a root of every kind of evil.

He says, in fact, in this church, Timothy, you yourself have seen, some have strayed from the faith because of their greed. What began as a curiosity and a fascination, an enthrallment with the gospel that was being preached ended with a betrayal, why?

Because this covetousness, this grasping, this greed was never rooted out of the life. And you yourself know, Timothy, Paul says, they have pierced themselves with many sorrows. Many sorrows. Now as Christians, we have to deal with wealth.

We have to deal with the ways of the world. We have to deal with wealth because we need food, we need something to wear. But if we spend all of our days thinking about what we're going to eat and what we're going to wear, we'll never arrive at the exceeding righteousness that Jesus described at the end of chapter 5.

The very lifestyle that Jesus requires of those who would follow Him. This is, again, the path that is narrow. Few find it. In other words, we'll never be able to live in light of the kingdom of God if we don't understand wisely and rightly how to deal with needs, provisions, ambitions, and desires in our lives.

If we don't know what it means to actually chasten our ambitions and desires, to somehow minimize the way we hold onto and look at our possessions, we will fall short of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.

If and this is where we're going in chapter 6 if, on the other hand, we recognize our Father's attention, His care for us, if we trust Him and we seek first His kingdom, we will not only have these things added to us, we will be able to live as truehearted disciples.

There's only two ways to live. And so Jesus warns, essentially, Jesus warns against clinging to the things that crumble. Don't cling to the things that crumble. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth.

That's the command. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth which moths and rust can destroy, where thieves will break in and steal. The moths almost certainly connected to what you'll wear. I don't think I've ever had any cloth-eaten, moth-eaten clothing.

I did grow up, though, with all sorts of cedar chests in our home. Now, something if you go into an old country store and you find a cedar chest, there's really nothing like it. You look like a weirdo on the security camera because you've got your head in the thing and you're just enjoying the smell so much.

But the whole point is you get rid of those moths.

Why?

Because they're going to chew through the clothing you spent your whole life trying to put together. In the ancient world especially, clothing was a status symbol. It defined your place in society. It wasn't just a sort of flashy way of denoting your wealth, but it was a way of establishing your dignity, establishing even your identity in society.

Jesus says, if you're consumed by that, what's my place? What's my status? That's something that moths will eat. That's something that gets taken from you. Don't live for that.

Rust.

Here, figuratively, it's almost literally the term brosis, just that which is eaten. It's hard to say if rust is really the best translation. It simply might be a boring insect, another type of devouring insect in view.

There's overlap in Malachi with that kind of terminology. But certainly the idea of corrosion, of something being consumed is in view, something being eaten away as rust does to precious metal.

Thieves.

The ancient world was replete with thieves. If you were traveling, by the way, it was very dangerous. In parts of the world today still, to travel in certain areas at certain times is incredibly dangerous.

There's travel advisories. There's places that you cannot simply go. If you find travel footage and so on, every now and then you'll see some European with a GoPro camera and they're just happily walking down some alley in Brazil and all the locals are like, no, no, no, don't go down that alley.

That's bad news. That's a lot like what the ancient world was like. Any alley was a potential danger. But here, the idea is that the thieves are digging into the home, digging into the place that you have secured your possession.

And the idea is it's at a time you couldn't observe. You go to that vault, you spent your whole life filling it and one morning you go and it's completely empty. You spent your whole life storing what was taken from you.

Jesus is, of course, living in days where there's no ring cameras, right? There's no Mission Impossible red laser security system. It's basically mud brick and you just dig through and grab what you want out of the house.

Just walk down the alley and punch through the wall and grab whatever's on the table. That's the ancient world. Jesus is essentially teaching that if your desire is to be full of earthly good, you'll find it eaten away.

But if your hunger is for the kingdom and its righteousness, you will be full. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. Psalm 39, verse 6, surely every man walks about like a phantom.

Surely they make an uproar for nothing. They amass riches, but they don't know who will gather them. That's the lament of the preacher in Ecclesiastes. I got it all and now someone will get it, I don't even know who they are.

It all goes to them. Everything I built, everything I labored for, it just goes into their hands. They didn't even lift an elbow for it. I sweat and broke my back over it for decades. It just falls into their hands.

Why do anything? It's part of the lament. What's the meaning of life? What's the meaning of work? What's the meaning of anything?

It's all vanity.

Or is it?

That's kind of the prodding question of Ecclesiastes, which Lord willing, we'll get to. Elsewhere, Jesus says in Luke 18, and again, here, we don't really square with this kind of ethical challenge as we ought in the West.

The early church grappled with this. They grappled with the teachings of Jesus in regard to wealth. The challenge of the Scriptures in regard to wealth. And Jesus in Luke 18, in light of the rich young ruler, says how hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God.

How hard it is. How hard it is for those who pile up treasure for themselves to enter the kingdom of God. It's hard because the whole testimony of Scripture begins with the fall. And what was the fall?

It was man's original desire to possess that which did not belong to him. I have to obtain. I'm not fulfilled. I'm not satisfied until I get the thing that God forbade. I'll work. I'll grab. I'll seize.

I'll control. That will be where I find my meaning, my lasting security, my hope. And so ever since then, this desire to possess, this desire to seize has taken on all of the cursed dimensions of sin.

And we find it squarely condemned by all the prophets. You read the major prophets, the minor prophets, they're all condemning this materialistic way of grasping possessions and using that grasp to crush those who are poor and depressed.

That's why Jesus comes and he preaches a gospel that is good news to the poor, to the have-nots, to the marginalized, to the hungry. And in light of that, he says it's so hard for those who aren't in that shape, physically, experientially, spiritually, to enter the kingdom.

We find the same prophetic denunciation of, say, Zephaniah 1 or Proverbs 11 in James 5. James, written sort of as a wisdom writing and taking up into its vortex all of this prophetic language and symbolism, and in many ways keying into Matthew 6 in the beginning of chapter 5 where he says, Come now, those who are rich, weep and howl.

These are the ones that are boasting and they're merry and they're glad. Look how well things have worked out. These are the bond villains petting white cats.

This is great.

We're on the yacht calling all of the shots. Things couldn't be better. And James says if you had a real perspective of life, you would be weeping and howling. Miseries are about to come upon you. And here's where James taps into the teaching of Jesus.

Your riches have rotted. Your garments have become moth-eaten. Your gold and your silver are rusted and their rust is now a witness against you to consume your flesh. In these last days, you have stored up treasure.

You see how James is interacting with this teaching of Jesus here? He's addressing those who haven't heard the warning of Jesus, who haven't understood, I'm living in the wrong way, I'm on the wrong path, I need to get right with God and begin to enter in that way that is narrow that so few find.

We could only describe the people that Jesus is warning against, the people that James is denouncing like a prophet of old as those that Paul says have their belly as their god. They don't live for anything higher than that.

It's not the contentment of godliness. It's the contentment of my belly's full and I live my whole life so that my belly is full. My belly is my God. And Paul says their end is destruction. It's no different than James 5.

It's no different than Matthew 6. Their end is destruction. They're on the wrong path because as Jesus says, they're not able to deny themselves. And he says, no one is able to come after me unless they deny themselves.

The reason it's so hard for those who have riches and those who live with a desire to be rich to follow after Jesus is because with the confidence and possession of riches, there's rarely any need to ever deny yourself.

You never have to say no. Everyone else has to say yes to you. You never have to deny yourself anything. That's why it's almost impossible to follow God because you cannot begin to follow God unless you deny yourself.

Unless Jesus turns it up a notch, unless you pick up a cross and crucify yourself. Jesus says, you can't follow me. This is not a problem, by the way, for the Jeff Bezos and the Bill Gates of the world.

This is a problem for us. On the grand scale of civilization, our culture operates on almost purely materialistic terms. We are living in strange days where there's sort of a counter-current against that.

But even 30 years ago, we came about as purely as a society as you could toward just abject materialism. That's all there is and that's all that matters. And even though we can see that and see what's wrong with that, we're still shaped by that in profound ways.

And we ought to be like the Christians of old who wrestled and wondered at how can we meet the challenge and the warning of our Savior? How can we be unlike those whose God is their belly? Who Paul says they just have their mind on earthly things.

It's not about the wealth. It's just the mind that is set on the earth. That's what Paul is essentially condemning. It's the same wrong way to live that's in view. It's an earthly mind. Spurgeon describes them as enemies of the cross in this way.

He says, do they do anything for Christ?

Nothing.

He says 20 years, nothing. So what are they minding? What are they doing? He says, I don't know. I'm only sure that their mind is on earthly things.

That's it.

This is the catechism they go through every day, Spurgeon says. What am I going to eat? What am I going to drink? What am I going to wear? That's all they live for. Jesus says if that's all you're living for, if that's all that you're striving after, if that's the position of your heart and your God is your belly, your end will be destruction.

And Christianity, it doesn't require a man to cast away the things that he's earned and.

Worked for.

There is some truth, as the Puritans would say, that the best way to lay up is to lay.

Out.

In other words, the best way to store up treasure in heaven is to hold things loosely and be generous toward others. Remember, that's where we begin in chapter 6 with charity and giving alms. But of course, Christianity does not require that we somehow take this vow of poverty and live with precious little possessions.

It does not require even that we give away the fruits of our labor. There's a right to possession. There's a right to the fruit of the labor. Christianity is a bulwark against the claims of the state that seeks to separate man from the fruit of his labor in this way.

Those who have faith recognize they're stepping in in a place that they ought not. God has ordained it such that the worker is worthy of his wages. Caesar comes in and says, those are my wages and I want my fat cut, even though I haven't lifted a finger for it.

So Christianity doesn't require that we cast wealth away in a vow of poverty. It certainly does not expect us to give away the fruit of our labor. But it absolutely forbids that we delight ourselves and trust in gathering up treasure as though it will fulfill us, as though it won't be taken from us.

That's what Scripture roundly condemns. The one who, as it were, puts their heart in their treasure, their earthly possession. In other words, it is not wrong to possess things, but it is wrong for those things to possess us.

That's what Jesus will say as we get toward verse 21. Have you seen, I've seen reports and pictures and videos, and it seems like this trend is growing for some reason. It's like the trend where if you go to Disney World nowadays, you find mostly 35-year-old with Mickey hats, and there's no kids.

Everyone's trying to have this Peter Pan approach to life where I'm just going to be a, you know, though I'm in my 40s, I'm going to be 13 again. I'm going to recapture my childhood and not grow up. And there's a part of that where there's men who spend vast sums of wealth collecting their childhood toys.

There was a joke about, you know, kids watching these commercials about these toys that are being made. And, of course, when a kid gets a toy, they tear open the box and they want to play with.

It.

And then they have some 40-year-old watching it and going, or just put it in a case, you know, just store that away so we can look at it, recapture something of our youth. It's that kind of mindset.

Let me possess and capture, and somehow this is fulfilling, somehow this brings me back, this nostalgia, look at all the variations I can collect and store up, and at the end of the day, what was that all for?

Jesus says, don't store up treasures on earth. Don't live for those things as though they possess you. Store up treasures in heaven. That's the second point. Verse 20, lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.

That's a command. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth. Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust can destroy, where neither thieves can break in and steal. Matthew, up to this point, by the way, he's, more than any other gospel writer, he's constantly using this reference to heaven, this language of heaven.

He is very concerned to show this tension between heaven and earth. Not that, there's all sorts of ways this gets misconstrued and misused. He's most likely, in many ways, like James seems to understand, pointing to the source of where everything that is good and right, where God's perfect will comes down to man.

He's also introducing this eschatological tension between the way of life on earth and the way that God has desired life to be from heaven. And of course, the prayer that we ended with in the Lord's Prayer is that God's will on earth will be done as it's done in heaven, right?

So the tension is there, brought together. This contrast between what is done on earth and what is done in heaven is important. This contrast between riches on earth and riches in heaven is important.

But remember, this is not a way of denouncing or rejecting possessions in the world. What did we see in Matthew 5? Jesus said, it's the meek who inherit the earth. So there is something physical. There's a dimension of possession and inheritance in the earth involving earthly things.

We should not think that Jesus means something like, this world is not my home, I'm just passing through. That's poor theology. This world's not your home? I understand the heart behind that. I'm living as a pilgrim.

I'm seeking the city whose builder and maker is God.

Amen.

But that doesn't mean you denounce or reject the world around you. This world is your inheritance. This world is not something arbitrary. This world is something groaning for redemption, just like your flesh and bones.

It too awaits the consummation of God's redemption, where God resolves everything that was impacted by the curse, as far as the curse is found. That includes the earth that we're standing upon, the earth that we see and enjoy all around us.

Seeking heavenly treasure does not entail the rejection of earthly good. It's really important we establish that. We end up not only impugning God's will in our lives, we also then become very poor stewards of the things that God supplies.

We also become ignorant to the beauty of the world around us and to miss out the hope of that beauty that yearns within us. We also, in many ways, are no longer able to recognize the goodness of God, first and foremost as creator.

And so we just begin with Him as redeemer. And when you begin at redemption rather than at creation, redemption is something that becomes very narrow. It gets boxed in and you're not able to make a real sense of what the Bible puts forth,.

Right?

So it's really important, again, seeking heavenly treasure does not entail rejecting earthly good. I feel close to God when I enjoy a cappuccino, right? Seeking heavenly treasure does not, I just praise God, I'm like for most of human civilization they never knew the bliss of this.

You are good to have made me in the days of third wave coffee, thank you Lord, right? Aren't you glad to be born after the Aztecs, you know, understood what could be done with cocoa beans? Aren't you glad to be able to taste things like coffee and chocolate?

God is good, amen. There's no argument for some kind of asceticism, in other words, as though holiness comes with denying yourself of the things that God has created, the goods that God has made so that we can be thankful to Him, so that we can glorify Him.

I've shared this story before but it just comes to mind especially since we were at Manadnock a few weeks ago. But I used to go to Manadnock as a boy and we would have summer camps there quite often. And at one point, Tom Sparling, this kind of worship leader was up there and there's all these youth group kids all around and he's going, he's kind of playing, you know, these chords on his acoustic guitar and he's saying, just start shouting out things you're thankful for.

You know, I'm thankful for my family and oh, I love my church and all these things and I'm a wise guy, you know, immature and I'm trying to impress my friends and I'm like, thank you for french fries.

And all of a sudden he stops the acoustic guitar and he's like, who said that? And every, every face turns toward me, I'm beet red and he's like, that is inappropriate.

To speak in that.

And I was like, you know, shaking the rest of the service.

In fact, the people that we went with from our church felt so bad for me, they were like patting my back for the rest of like the night. And after Tom came up to me and, you know, the lesson had been learned in a lot of ways but I, like the rich young ruler, I was working out of theological defense and I'm like, are we not commanded to thank God for all things?

I didn't have the right heart in it. And now I'm older and I mean, if you go to the right restaurant, it's like, thank you for french fries, God. Thank you for everything, whether we eat or we drink, we glorify God, that's the point.

There's no place for asceticism, I'm not holy unless I eat gray oatmeal, you know, and wear something threadbare, that's not, that's not holy. Jesus, as will be clear in verse 21, he's not driving for some sort of asceticism, he's pressing at what the priorities are in our life.

What are you living for? He's not charging us to live under a vow of poverty, he in fact would not want us to despise all the good things that God has given, he wants them to be enjoyed. A good father knows how to give good gifts to his children.

This is what your heavenly father's like. We read, I read from 1st Timothy 6, 8 through 10, right, where he's warning against the desire for riches that pierces men with sorrow, that drowns men in destruction.

Well, you get to verse 17 and now he'll speak to those who are wealthy in the church and he says, Timothy, command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, not to trust in uncertain riches, you might be doing well this year, that's, that may not be the case next year.

But rather to trust in the living God who gives us richly all things to enjoy. He's saying you can tell the rich, you know, as long as their heart's in the right place, enjoy the good things that you have, enjoy them.

We walk in a new life when we come to Christ, we have a new awareness, we have a new center, that center is one of acknowledging God with gratitude and humility. And so there's no need for some sort of ascetic life, there's no need to enter into a monastery and punish yourself.

This is not the taste-not, touch-not, handle-not ways of the Pharisees, no, we're surrounded by the same things we've always been surrounded by. That doesn't change, the difference is now I'm aware of it, it comes from the hand of.