Where Your Treasure Is

Introduction

How much money would it take before you considered yourself to be wealthy? We probably would get different answers from different people who were here this morning. I remember not too long ago one of my kids yelling, “I’m rich!” when someone gave them a few dollars. Of course our tastes and our development change over time as we get older and the needs grow. But I think we understand that our ideas

Of wealth are often very relative. And one person might say one thing and another might say something else. Maybe the better question is how much would I need to be content? Contentment is an interesting thing. It’s more about attitude and perspective than it is some kind of number or a gathering of possessions. And this is really the idea of what Paul wants us to consider in 1 Timothy chapter 6. The text we’re going to look

At some this morning. Really what is a true vision of wealth? What does it mean to truly be wealthy? Although I haven’t done a lot of this in some of the previous sermons, the foundation of what we’ve been doing has been from the Sermon on the Mount. I do want to spend a few minutes going back to the Sermon on the Mount to set the stage and build a framework for what Paul’s doing in 1 Timothy chapter 6 as I think this text is extremely

1. Where Your Treasure Is, There Your Heart Will Be

Important. So let’s begin reading with there in Matthew chapter 6 and verse 19. Matthew 6:19. I want to do some things with this text and show how most of the chapter actually connects and then work from there to go back to 1 Timothy 6. That being the foundation that to build some ideas about our concepts of wealth and gain. He says, “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 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 the 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. I think this text in many ways stands alone. We could go straight to Matthew 6:19-24 and probably have great Bible classes and great sermons and pull out a lot of really good ideas from the few things that are said here in this handful of verses. But, what I want us to

Understand is Jesus is doing such something much bigger than just these few verses here. He’s expanding this from the concepts that he presented before, earlier in the chapter. It’s a chapter that has to do with what we value. What is it that we see as being valuable? What is true gain? What do we think actually matters in life and where do our desires lie? Where do we put our heart? And that’s where he gets to the point about where your treasure is,

There your heart will be also. But, this begins all the way back in verse one at least. It probably goes even further back in the Sermon on the Mount. But, he says here, “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.” A really interesting twist here in the message that Jesus is giving is he’s saying, “You’re going to have a reward. It’s just not going to be

From the Father.” So, if your motivations, if your desires of what you truly see to be as gain is the attention you get in this life, you’ll have a reward. You’ll get the attention you want. You can go pray on the corners and you can make loud noises when you give so everybody sees how generous you are. And you can make your face look all sullen and when you fast so everybody knows how holy and righteous you are and they’ll praise you

For that and you’ll have all sorts of attention for your religious behavior. And he says about that, “Those people have their reward.” They have it. That’s what it is. All it is what’s right here. The people who will go by and say, “Oh, wow, you fast? You must be really spiritual.” Or, “Man, you give so much money. Wow, look at how holy you are.” That’s your reward. That’s it. There’ll be no reward from the Father who it says sees in secret.

But if we do these things for the right reasons, with the right motivations, with the right desire, then all of this then translates into a Father who sees even we do things secretly, even when we do things not to get attention, not to have the praise of men. And for those people, the Father who sees in secret will reward us. This has to do with value. It has to do with how we see the world. Our vision of the world, the world view

Within which we live. Are we doing the things that we’re doing for some sort of gain here, or are we doing this for some future hope of what is to come? And Jesus is making this point, it’s the same point we’re going to see in just a minute with Paul made in a slightly different way. But what I want us to understand here is what Jesus is getting at in this text that may be a little bit confusing to you if you haven’t thought about it in the connection to what I

Just made with the earlier parts of Matthew 6. When he just says after he talks about where your treasure is, your heart is going to be also, and then he says, “The eye is the lamp of the body.” Why is he talking about the eye? What does this have to do with the eye being full of light and the whole body being full of light or being full of darkness? Well, the idea here is the way you see things. If you look at the world and you’re

After gain here, if you do the things that you do here, he’s talking about religious things, spiritual things that we would look at and say giving and prayer and fasting, those are good. And Jesus is saying if you do it a certain way, it’s bad. And your body is full of darkness. It’s about the way you perceive the world. And what you allow into yourself. The motivations that drive you.

If the eye is good, then it is full of light, and your whole body is full of light. It’s not the things themselves. It’s not the giving. It’s not the praying. It’s not the fasting. There’s no judgment rendered on those items within themselves. It’s what we think about them. It’s how we use them. It’s the way we perceive them and what we think they’re doing for us.

And that’s what Jesus is talking about when he says, “The eye is the lamp of the body.” The way we see all of this and what we allow it into our bodies and the way we use it, this is what determines whether it’s actually good or beneficial or bringing true gain to our life or if it is a very worldly focused concept. And that’s why right after this, he goes back to the conclusion, “No one can serve two masters.” You can’t serve the eye that’s full of

The things of the world and also serve the eye that’s trying to be full of light. They’re incompatible. They don’t work. You can’t have both and you can’t serve both. You’re going to serve one or you’re going to serve the other. And what Paul’s wanting us to get at as we look at 1 Timothy 6, we’re going to read that here in just a second, is that it’s not really about how much money you have. That’s not where the judgment is

Rendered. It’s about how you view the money and the possessions that you have. It’s what you imagine you can do with those things and what they do for you. That’s what truly matters. It’s not that because you have a lot of money, now you’re evil and wicked and wrong. That’s not what Jesus teaches. It’s about the way we view the money that we have and the way we use the blessings that God has given to us. So, with that foundation from Matthew

2. Godliness With Contentment Is Great Gain

Chapter 6, I want to turn over to 1 Timothy 6. And I want to look at this text and read sections of this as we work through it this morning. 1 Timothy chapter 6, let’s begin in verse 3. 1 Timothy chapter 6 in verse 3, he says, “Teach and urge these things.” This is Paul speaking to Timothy, giving him some advice and teaching him about how he should live and how he should do his ministry. And so he says, “Teach and

Urge these things.” If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the

Truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain. But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world and we can take any We cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation into a snare and into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of

Money is a root of all kinds of evil. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains. I want us to notice in the very beginning of this text that it’s not all about money. What he begins with is people who misuse spiritual things, who misuse their religion. In fact, he’s going to come back to this in 2 Timothy 3 and verse 5 when he talks about some people having

This form of godliness, but they deny its power. They profess to believe in Christ and they and they have kind of a religious kind of life and they project all of these things, but really they don’t actually live the truth that they may proclaim. Or they have warped or twisted the truth, which is part of the concern he has here. And they’re doing this for other purposes. Some may be kind of financial gain, or maybe they’re trying to gain some

Sort of gathering among people. They want to be popular. Whatever it might be, what Paul’s saying here is some people imagine that godliness, which is the idea of piety or being religious and oriented life that is focused on the things of God, they imagine that’s going to get them something. So, they live this life and they do these things not because the inherent value, which is where he goes next, but because they see some perceived value

Here and now. Maybe it is monetary wealth. But gain is not just limited to money or possessions. It can also be the way people perceive us. Right? It can be building some kind of reputation among the others or maybe it’s just trying to avoid the problems that would come if we live the way we actually wanted to live and so we see this as some way to get some sort of gain in our life. And Paul says that’s not the way to live. In

Fact, he says godliness, it’s not the means of gain. Godliness is the gain. Godliness with contentment is great gain, he says in verse six. And so when we have a seeking first sort of mentality, which is what we’ve been working through in this series, right? So, Matthew 6 where we just were, you go down a few verses to Matthew 6:33 and it says, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you. Don’t get caught

Up in all the concerns and the anxieties of the world, but focus on what truly matters.” And this morning we’re talking about what true wealth is. And it’s not the things that we imagine in the world that would bring gain. All the money or the attention or the popularity. It depends on what phase of life you’re in and what you value, what you may be tempted toward. Right? But here he’s speaking more specifically about the love of money,

For instance, in verse 10. And all the evils and problems that come through that kind of desire and temptation. When my focus becomes on the things primarily of this world, rather than seeing those things merely as a tool to operate within a life oriented toward God, when that becomes the life that I’m after, it can bring in all sorts of wickedness and evil in my life. If that is the craving I have, if that’s the direction I want to go, if that’s

What I think is true gain, I will do whatever it takes to get it. The irony is that is the attitude we should have toward the kingdom of God. And if we’re seeking first God’s kingdom, it’s going to reshape the way we view gain. What is true gain? This has to do with value. What are the things that I actually value in life? That’s what Paul’s getting at when he

Talks about this godliness with contentment is great gain. When I have this perspective, I’m not focused on all the things in the world and their perceived value and what they may bring to me. We live in the world and we’ve talked about this in the other sermons as well. The goal here is not to say we need to separate ourselves from the world and have no involvement in the world. Paul says you can’t do that in 1 Corinthians chapter 5.

But what we can do is shape our eyes in the right way so that our eye, being the lamp of our body, is letting in light. It is focused on the light and not on the darkness. We’re filling ourselves with the right kind of perspective and we understand what is actual gain in life. What do I consider to be gain? Well, I think there’s pretty simple applications that we can think about with this. The temptation, of course, is

To think about all the nice things we can have, the nice house, the nice car, the money, the retirement package. Whatever that is, that’s typically what we would think of as gain in this kind of life. But I think probably all of us would it would realize at a fundamental level that what is truly gain in our life are maybe our friendships or our family, our brothers and sisters in Christ.

I mean, don’t we at least on an intellectual level, even right now as we’re dealing with things in life and we realize we have financial concerns and we have jobs to work and all of that what we truly enjoy, at least this is my what I enjoy. Thanksgiving is like my favorite holiday. Isn’t it amazing just to get together, be with friends and family, and share a meal? Doesn’t that just bring you so much more fulfillment than your direct deposit?

The energy your account? I mean, that’s great. I mean, I don’t want to stop getting it, elders. I don’t want to stop getting it. you know, we need money to live. It’s a tool, right? I mean, it’s a tool that allows us to do the things that we need to do, but it is not a god. It’s It’s not something we worship. It’s not something that we should be craving and desiring and going after. It’s just one

Of those necessities of life in our day and age, it is dollars. It’s a monetary thing, you know, in past ages, maybe you traded for the things that you needed, or you grew your own crops, or whatever. That These things are needed in life, and they’re part of living, but they don’t necessarily represent what is true life. What fills us up? What gives us life? Those are the things that are

3. Reconsider What Is Enough

Gain. And when we understand this, when this reshapes and reorients our idea of what is gain, it also helps us reconsider what is enough. If you’re getting to be my age, you are older, you’re probably thinking about, at least in our country, retirement. You know, how am I doing preparing for what is to come in the years ahead? You know, one of these days I won’t be able to work anymore if I’m still alive,

Hopefully, then I’ll have some time to enjoy some things in this life. And how am I going to do that? You know, so we’re starting to consider how am I going to put aside, and how much is enough? I My undergraduate degree’s in finance, so I love those kind of questions. I see the articles and I read them and I think about it. I enjoy just the hobby of that kind of thing. And, you know, the 4% rule, you can only take 4% of your

Retirement a year, and all these kinds of things, and you may disagree or agree with that. I don’t care either way, but it’s just the whole point. We get into that, right? Because it’s important to us. We don’t want to be 86 years old and run out of money. that would be difficult to live this life, right? So that matters and there’s some value in that. Obviously, I think there is some of the choices I’ve

Made in life and thinking about that. I think there’s some value in those sorts of things, but again, they’re only a tool for a greater purpose. What is truly valuable? What is truly gained? It is the people around us. It is the God we serve. It is the realities of life that really make us who we are and where we’re going. We’re not staying here. This is not the end. And if everything in our life is focused

On what happens here, we’re really missing the big picture. We’re missing what truly matters in life. And yes, I think as responsible people, as good stewards, we should think and we should plan. And I think that’s smart to do. But at the end of the day, we also need to understand where our hope actually lies. What is truly important and what we should actually put our trust in.

4. True Wealth Changes What I Desire and Love

If I understand true wealth because I’m seeking first the kingdom, it changes even the things I desire and what I love. Paul just tells us, right? They don’t always do Sometimes we have to reason through this, but he just flat out says, “The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Don’t love money.” I mean, that’s a simple message. Wherever we are and whatever we’re dealing with, I actually I think we see

This even if we’re not even talking about spiritual things as we would call We look out into the world and we see what happens when people have this inordinate desire, this craving for money. I think that’s the point Paul’s actually making here when he talks about what happens with this. Right? All the all the problems, the senseless and harmful desires and the ruin and the destruction. I mean, we don’t Don’t we see this if

Even from an investing standpoint. Let’s just go that direction. If you have an inordinate desire and craving for wealth and you take huge risks in the stock market or how you invest your money, how does that turn out for you? Don’t Don’t You don’t have to answer. But if you’ve ever gone down that road, I’ll just say it goes poorly. Most of the time. Right? And that’s just an earth-bound perspective of this.

But when we are when we love money and we make decisions based on this side of craving and of course you got something like gambling or someone’s They’re they’re spending their whole life savings trying to make it big and they end up outside their hotel room despondent and in destruction because they’ve given up everything they have trying to make so much money. I mean that’s a horrible ugly picture. But the reality is often it can be much

More subtle than that. And those are the clear, vivid realities of someone who has sold themselves for the love of money. But it can also be through indecision. It can be through the day-to-day choices of life where rather than thinking on what true wealth is and what truly matters, I’m focused on the things that are limited to here. And although wealth, what it has to offer is actually so little in the long

Run, it can be very easy to begin putting my security and my trust in something that is very temporary. Let’s read verse 11, 1 Corinthians 1 Timothy 6 beginning in verse 11. This is what Paul says to Timothy and how we should do the opposite of what is said in verse 10. But as for you, oh man of God, flee these things. So, stay away from

All the love of money and all the problems that come with that. Instead, pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. Fight the good fight of faith. Take hold on eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. I charge you in the presence of God who gives life to all things and of Christ Jesus who is who in his testimony before

Pontius Pilate made the good confession to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he will display at the proper time, who is the blessed and only sovereign, the king of kings and lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see, to him be honor and eternal dominion.

Amen. This is what Paul’s saying in our lingo. And what Jesus said. Prepare for the eternal retirement. Everything that’s happening here is going to be done away with and is not going to matter. Right? Pursue the things that actually have true, long-lasting value. And he throws in this confession. It’s almost like a doxology of sorts. But part of what he’s doing here is saying,

“Instead of trusting all the things of this life, you need to trust the one who is sovereign, the only sovereign, the king of kings, the lord of lords.” Put your trust in him and what he has to offer. He is the only one who has eternal significance. He has dominion forever. This is the one our trust should be placed in. Flee all the other things when it comes to hope and to trust,

Imagining that somehow they’re going to offer some kind of security for us. In the end, they’re all going to fail. And if we pursue that, if we love it, all it’s going to do is snare us. Right? It’s just going to catch us in the things of the world. That’s what he says. People who love money, they fall into a snare. They fall into harmful desires. Right? They’re They’re cravings are going to pierce them through with pangs.

That is mental and physical distress and suffering. When we put our hope and our trust in the material things around us, first of all, that’s making mammon our master, as Matthew would say in Matthew chapter 6 and verse 24. And when that’s the case, we can’t serve God. You can’t have two masters. The idea there is who are you going

To trust? Who are you going to put your hope in? Is it going to be the things of the world and what they have to offer or is it going to be the things of God and what he has to offer? Then what are we going to work for? Are we going to work for the things of this world and what they can bring us or are we going to work for the glory and the honor of the one who is eternal?

Godly people, and I want you to understand this text in 1 Timothy, it talks very fully about the idea of godliness. Right, it’s even within our immediate reading here. Godly people who are oriented toward the things of God. Godly people are the people who seek first the kingdom. Those go hand in hand. And godliness is the idea of being oriented in the right direction.

It’s about being pious and being religious. Those are good words. In our world often they’re looked at as negative. If you’re religious or you’re pious, it’s kind of thought as a bad thing. But from a scriptural standpoint, that’s good. It’s good to be pious, to think on holy things. Godly people find security in God not in their wealth. That’s a pretty challenging thing in a country that is probably one of the

Most wealthy countries that has ever existed. In which so much attention and so much concern is placed on monetary issues and hopes and dreams. I mean, that’s the American dream. I’m not really speaking negatively of it, but it’s that we can acquire and we can possess and we can gain and of course, I think that’s way better than living in a society where you’re squashed down and you can’t

Do anything, of course. But the temptation there is to then let that be the worldview through which we see everything. To let the pursuit of just the material, of the possessions and the money be the eye through which we see it and then the darkness is really filling our heart. And maybe a temptation for us could be at times we love that so much. It’s hard It’s hard to imagine going somewhere else.

5. Seeking First Changes How We Invest Our Lives

We have it so good. But there is something so much better than what we have here. And that should be the vision, the hope that we have for the future. I want to reinforce this idea as we move on to this last point. That there’s there’s not a problem with having wealth. The problem is in trusting wealth. Putting our hope in wealth, loving wealth.

To the extent that we will hoard it or that we keep it or that becomes the focus of the direction of our life. And when I’m seeking first the kingdom, when I am a godly person, right? And you as a godly person, if we’re seeing this in the right way, what it does is it changes how we invest our lives, the things that we put ourselves into. The actions, really that’s what it comes down to. It when we seek first the

Kingdom, it’s about how it changes our actions and the way we think about those actions. How I use what I have, whatever it may be, whether I am truly considered wealthy in our world or not. Am I using the things God has blessed me with in a way that brings honor to him, that shows that my eye is filled with the light? That I am moving in a direction that is pleasing God. Do I see my possessions,

My money as gifts that I am to steward and not just hold for my own enjoyment. This is where the text goes in the next section. It says in verse 17, “As for the rich.” Now, Paul’s going to give some direction about how to live. Right? This is what This is how we invest ourselves in our future in our life. If you’re rich, which pretty much most of us are from a even a worldly stand point throughout the history of the world,

We’re pretty wealthy. He said, “This is how you live.” As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches. This is what we just talked about. Our riches are uncertain, they can be swept away at any moment. One action in life can take us from being what we may consider wealthy to being impoverished. It’s not going to be something that build a foundation on.

It’s not reliable. Right? So, don’t trust in that. Don’t trust in the uncertainty of riches, but trust put your trust on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may they may take hold on that which is truly

Life. I’m certain you can hear the echoes from what we read in Matthew 6. The Sermon on the Mount and what Jesus was teaching there, now then being relayed in another way by Paul that is very similar. As he’s talking about treasuring things up and how we store up what we have and what we’re building with what we’ve been given. And all of this, the foundation of the framework of that is all coming from

Matthew 6 in Jesus’ own words. True wealth is found in being rich in good works, he says, in chapter 6 in verse 18. Doing good is part of what it means to be godly. Right? Taking what we have, whether it’s skills or possessions or money, whatever it may be, and finding a way to do good things with that, to act in a way that brings honor to God and brings glory to his kingdom. That is the way

That he wants us to live and to work. And when we do that, doesn’t matter how much money we have, he says, “You’re building a foundation. You are rich in good works.” And the means by which you do that is you’re the kind of person who’s looking to be generous, to share. I think it’s obvious that is the opposite of something like hoarding. Right? You know,

Having the wealth and the money and just collecting it and keeping it for yourself. The person who’s a godly person is looking for ways to help others around them by being generous, by sharing the things that they have. They’re not storing up the treasures of this life. Do you see the contrast of what’s happening here? Are you going to store up things on earth where they’re going to eventually moth and the rust is going to destroy, they’re just going to

Go away anyway, but we’re going to collect all those things because we want them for ourselves? Or are we going to do the opposite, which is to share and be generous, and by doing that, by not storing up the things here, we actually are storing up a foundation for the future with our richness toward God and our being rich in good works. But I think it’s the last phrase of

Verse 19 that strikes me the most, particularly in connection with what we’ve been doing through this series so far. When he says, “So that they may take hold of that which is truly life.” A few weeks back now we talked about, I think actually it was when we talked about Matthew 5 through 7, having reshaping our idea of what the good life is, and that’s what he’s talking about here.

What he’s saying is the good life is not a life where you hoard up and you store and you possess and you take and you keep. The good life is a life in which the light is coming into the eyes and filling our body. And in fact, the term there actually used in Matthew 6, it talks about if your eye is healthy, is a term that can mean sincere or generous. You have a generous eye.

You’re looking out for ways in which you can be helpful and you can share and you can extend your blessings to others around you. God blesses us so that we can bless. That’s all the way back in the beginning in Genesis. This is God’s vision. This is what he wants is that his people, his people who are blessed will then bless others. This is true life. It’s the good life. It’s what we enjoy so much often about

Our relationships that we have. The good memories of the things that we have together, right? The things that you’ve done for me or the things I’ve done for you. Those are the things we actually cherish. And that we really treasure. It’s not how much money we have in the bank. Or how much is in our 401k. I mean, that’s a actually that’s just a source of anxiety.

It’s what I talked about earlier. Am I going to have enough? Is it going to last until I die? These are the kinds of concerns. You know what will never go away? The memories and the love that we have for each other as God’s people. The reality that you have been generous to me and that you have shared with me and I will remember that forever. Or that I have paid attention to you in some way and you’ll remember that. Those are the things that are true wealth.

That’s what truly matters among the people of God who are godly and focused on the right kinds of things. This is the good life. It’s storing up treasure for the future with a foundation that truly matters. And if you get to be 86 years old and all your money’s gone, I’ll tell you what. You’ll have hundreds of people around you who care about you. And you’ll be provided for.

There’s a lot of things we can’t control. But I do believe this, that if we store up a foundation for the future and being rich in good works, that God will provide. That is our hope. That is our hope not just in the present life, but even more so in the life to come. And so I want us to think as I think

Paul is guiding our minds in this text about what true wealth is. It’s not gaining and possessing things of this life. It’s not this push to be wealthy and to have the next new thing. I really thought that Elon Musk Roadster’s pretty awesome, but you know what? I’ll probably never have one and I don’t care. Like that’s that’s just a reality. There’s so many

Things. If we’re always pursuing that, there’s just always the next thing. It’s always the next thing we can want and desire. And we’ll never be content. You know, we’ll get that and then there’ll be something else that’s the new cool thing to get. The only answer to this is just to be content with the things that we have. You know, if you get that, great. I’ll be happy for you. You can be content

With that, but don’t then crave the next thing. That’s not the answer to life and that’s what he’s getting at here when he says that we’re looking for that which is truly life. We’re looking for that which is the answer to life and all the stuff is not the answer. The answer is the hope that we have through Jesus Christ. And so he says, “Don’t pursue wealth and

Possessions, the attention of the world, the praise of man. Pursue righteousness and godliness. Don’t put your hope in things that are temporal or going to go away, but put your hope in God. Don’t be rich in this present age. That shouldn’t be your goal. If you are, what you really should be using the wealth you have in this present age for is to be rich in good works, to refocus on the things that truly matter, not to

Conclusion

Accumulate more and more. But through generosity and love and sharing to store up treasure for the life to come.” And so seeking first ultimately changes our perspective on everything in life. But when it comes to the world itself, it means I have a different view of what is valuable and what I need to be putting my trust in and what I should be investing my time and

My effort in. True wealth is not found through possessions, through money. True wealth is found with godliness and contentment. That’s where real gain is found. well, I hope this morning this has just been an informational pursuit for you. that our desires, for the most part, are intact, but maybe you’ve let

Things get out of line, and you’ve been pursuing the wrong things. That happens. And that’s why we do these sermons, and we work through these texts to help recenter us on what truly matters. And maybe that’s you this morning. You’ve given your life to Jesus Christ, but you realize you haven’t been giving your life to him recently. And if that’s the case, you can go home, and you can pray to God in your closet, in the secret place,

And he will take care of that for you. But if you need the encouragement, if you need us to surround you and to lift you up in whatever struggles you’re going through, we are glad to do that. That’s what we’re here for. Maybe you realize you’ve been pursuing all the wrong things, and you haven’t given yourself to Jesus at all. And if you’ve done that, you have no wealth. You are impoverished.

You have no future. You have no hope. And I’m not saying that to be ugly. It’s just the reality of the situation. But you can be rich in good works by giving yourself first to Jesus Christ, dying with him, being buried in baptism, coming up in newness of life, and beginning this walk in a life which is truly life. Because it is God that gives life to all things, as 1 Timothy 6 says. Can we help you this morning? Won’t you come now as we

Stand and we sing.