Episode 326: Where is Your Treasure? | Dave Sloop

Introduction

Good morning, everyone. Bob is not the only one who is speaking on Quig's behalf today. I'm honored that I get to speak. We miss your voice, Quig. We miss your voice.

Hey. I wanted to begin this morning sharing with you an email that I received some years ago from a young lady named Molly. Molly was a camper at Lake Champion, which is Young Life Camp, back in 2017 when I happened to be the camp speaker. And Molly was this sweet girl who had had some really, really hard and sad things happen in her life, but when she was confronted with the truth of the gospel, it changed her life. And it was one of those encounters, one of those conversions where you just, you could see a physical difference when she met Christ. She was a new creation.

And every once in a while, I'd get an email from Molly. She'd give me an update on what she was learning, what she was doing, and this is an email that she wrote to me in 2019, and here's what she said. Hi, Sloop. It's definitely been a while. I hope all is going well for you. I cannot believe 2019 is almost over. It's so crazy how fast the year went. The beginning, I was in high school, and now I'm a freshman in college. Everything has been pretty good so far.

One thing that has been difficult is my relationship with Jesus. I'm wondering if you have advice on how to reconnect and rebuild my relationship with him. I just haven't felt connected with God as much as I did in the past. I know that Jesus high cannot last forever, but I know I don't want to always feel this way. I know I will get back to how my relationship with the Lord used to be, but I need advice on how to get there, and you seemed like the perfect person to get advice from. Molly.

What an honest question. You know, if I could summarize what I think Molly was trying to say in my own words, I would put it this way. Where did my joy in Christ go? Why did I lose it, and how do I get it back? To be clear, like, Molly was not just pursuing some emotional experience or what she called the Jesus high. She knew that it wasn't about that, that that wasn't supposed to last forever. But on the other side, Molly, I suspect, would have said, I don't want to be in a joyless, lifeless relationship with God. One perhaps that was reduced to a list of dos and don'ts and beliefs to which we subscribe.

She knew, or at least hoped, it had to be more than that. There was something about that email that just captured me. And immediately, my response to it went to the top of my to-do list for that day. I just, it was almost a sense of urgency and my need to respond to her. And I think it was for two reasons. Number one, I was moved by her earnestness, by her sincere and honest desire for more in her relationship with God, and I felt that her sincere question deserved a heartfelt biblically wise response.

But secondly, and if I'm being honest, perhaps the greater reason for my sense of urgency in responding to Molly on that day was that I needed to know that there was an answer. I needed to know that I had an answer to her question, not just for her, but for me. Because you see, what Molly had the courage to say out loud is I think something that I, along with many of us here, have quietly wondered so many times. Where has my joy in Christ gone? Why did I lose it, and how do I get it back?

I needed to know that I had an answer to that question because you see, here's the problem. If we don't have an answer to that question, eventually, we stop asking the question, and we just adjust our expectations down to match our present experience, and we stop hoping for more. We as we stop expecting more or reaching for more in our relationship with Christ, and we just settle.

The Human Desire and Treasure

Now, if those of you, that are here today and might not characterize yourself as a Christian, maybe you are skeptical, you're not quite sure what you believe about God, Jesus, the church, let me tell you why I think it might be worth listening in today. Because what we are talking about is fundamental to the human experience. No matter what we believe, what we can all stack hands on and agree on is this common ache that we all have, this hunger or thirst in the soul that we go to get quenched.

We're gonna go somewhere to find satisfaction in life, and my question for all of us today is, is it working? See, Molly had found it. She had discovered what she was made for or rather for whom she was made, and it changed her life. But then somehow, over the years, the joy started to fade. And the question is, why? Why does that happen? Why do we lose our joy in Christ, and how do we get it back?

As I started to write Molly back, I found myself borrowing words from Jesus' sermon on the mount, specifically Matthew 6:19-24. We're gonna look at that passage today, and I think that as we do, what we will find are the answers to those two questions. Why do we lose it and how do we get it back?

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven where moth and rust do not destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. — Matthew 6:19-21

The Nature of Treasure

The key to unlocking the secret of why we lose our joy in Christ is tied up in that single word that Jesus repeats three times in those three verses. Who caught the word? It's treasure. He said, treasure. I don't know about you, but what image comes to mind when you think of that word?

I was born in 1976, but really, I'm a child of the eighties, and one of my favorite movies was Goonies. Anybody else know that movie? You know, it's this this group of teenage kids. Mikey is the lead character, and they find this treasure map in the attic, and they go off on this adventurous journey to try to find the hidden, lost treasure of One Eyed Willie, the pirate. And his pirate ship was somewhere hidden in that town, and these kids, it's a hilarious movie, they almost die a few times. But at the end of this movie, they find the treasure, and I'll never forget that scene where Mikey, you know, he pushes his head up through the hull of that ship, and he sees treasure everywhere, diamonds, gold, silver, jewelry, treasure, something of immeasurable worth and value because that's exactly what treasure is.

But, you know, treasure can be a noun like we just talked about, or treasure can be a verb. To treasure someone or something is to ascribe worth and value to it. And the fact that we have a verb for this process is evidence that treasure is an entirely subjective reality. This is why we have the phrase, one man's trash is another man's treasure. What is treasure to you might not be treasure to me.

There is no thing that the world has to offer that is inherently a treasure, but rather things and people become treasure when we put that label on them. The point of all of this is that treasure is always a choice. You and I, as human beings, we are given the right to choose our treasure. And what Jesus is telling us in these verses is be very, very careful what you choose. Because on the other side of that choice, there will be some very real world consequences. He's going to tell us that our treasure in this process of treasuring will have a very real and definite and profound impact on our hearts.

He puts it this way. He says, where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. In other words, our hearts, that place where our thoughts, our desires, our will converge, it's the center of who we are. In fact, the Latin word for heart is our core. It's the core of our being. And Jesus says the core of who you are will move towards your treasure, and your treasure is a choice.

Perhaps another way to say it would be to say this, our hearts are shaped and formed by what we love the most, by our treasure. So be careful. This is so important to understand, and here's why. Because this flies in the face of what the world teaches us, and it's a little bit counterintuitive. You see, we don't often think of our desires as something that are you know, we think of our desires as something that passively happens to us, but that's not what Jesus is describing here. He's saying that we have something to do with the cultivation and the curation of the desires in our heart.

There is something inside each one of us instinctively that knows we look to our heart for answers. It's almost like we are waiting for our hearts to give us a sign before we go do the thing. We're looking to our hearts to tell us. We even say things like, what is your heart telling you? Listen to your heart. You can trust your heart. Follow your heart. And on its face, that doesn't sound like bad advice, but you know where else we hear advice like that? On television shows like The Bachelor. Follow your heart. Your heart will lead you to the right one, and instantly, everyone's wondering, does Sloop watch The Bachelor? It's none of your business. Okay? I don't watch The Bachelor, but I have seen The Bachelor, and I know that that's precisely the advice you can expect on that show. Follow your heart. What would Jesus have to say about that advice? I think he would say, be careful. I think he would say, following your heart can be a very dangerous game. Why? Because you see, the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? — Jeremiah 17:9

Sometimes Jesus would say, your heart just might not be qualified to lead you, so be careful. But I think Jesus would say something else to us. I think he would say, that's just not really how it works either. We don't primarily follow our hearts, but rather our hearts follow us. See, our hearts move towards our treasure, and our treasure is something we chose. You don't follow your heart. Your heart follows you in the thing that you chose.

To be sure, our hearts lead us. Our hearts do give us advice, but the quality of that advice and the direction that it points us is entirely dependent upon what we have chosen to treasure. Our affections, our desires, our passions. See, those things aren't just something that passively happened to us.

Let me give you another example of this. — Psalm 37:4

Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.

I misunderstood that verse for years. You know, when we hear delight, we think of that as like an experience, as something that happens to us. We hear something or we see something, we look into our kid's face, and we experience delight. It's a passive experience to experience delight. But David, in this verse, says it's something that we do. It's a declarative statement. It's a command. Delight yourself. He might as well have said, choose to treasure the Lord, and when you do, something will happen on the other side. Namely, you'll get some new desires.

What David is saying in Psalm 37 and what Jesus is saying in Matthew 6 is this: our desires are determined by what we have chosen to treasure. So choose careful. And Jesus gives us two options, and there's not a third. He says, you can either have treasure on earth or you can have treasure in heaven. But the reality is, if you are here today and you are a human being, is this: you will treasure something. It's just part of what it means to be human. We go looking for treasure. We're hardwired to do it, and we will find it. We will find something to worship, whether it is here on earth or whether it is God in heaven.

Jesus says that there's some problem with choosing earthly treasure. There are two problems. The first thing that he says is that earthly treasure is subject to rust and decay. He says, moth and rust destroy it. In other words, every single thing that is contained in the earth is breaking down. If you put food out on the counter, it will spoil eventually. You can put it in the fridge, it'll slow the process down, but it will eventually spoil. Because to be contained in this earth is to be something that is fading away and spoiling over time. The cars that we drive are getting worse over time. The houses that we live in are depreciating. Maybe they're going up in their monetary value, but they're not getting better and newer. They're getting worse.

You know what else is breaking down? You and me. I will be 47 in December, and I can assure you of this. Every single morning, I will wake up in pain. Do you know this phenomenon? This crowd over here maybe knows it a little more. I'm just kidding, Dan. When we wake up in the morning, we're in pain. Why? Is it because I did a CrossFit workout yesterday? No. I have yet to do one of those. I wake up in pain because I get into my comfortable bed, and I stay in one position for too long, and my body cannot handle that much intensity. I wake up hurting. You're breaking down, and so am I. In fact, every single thing in the earth that is a candidate for treasure is something that is fading away in real time, and you know it, and I know it.

The second problem with earthly treasure, Jesus said, is that sometimes thieves break in and steal. Sometimes through no fault of our own, stuff that has become treasure here in the earth, it gets taken from you. The stock market crashes. You lose your job unexpectedly. A spouse is unfaithful, or you lose someone that you love way before you should have. See, if our treasure is something here on the earth, either it is slipping through our fingers because it's fading away, or we are constantly insecure knowing at any moment the rug could pull, and we'll lose it. This produces in us this desire to store up more. We hoard it because we think, if I can just get some more, it will satisfy. So we reach and we grasp for more and more and more, but it doesn't work because we know there's no number on the scale that will be low enough. There's no number in the bank account that will be high enough. There's no number of likes on Instagram that will satisfy that God-sized ache. It doesn't work.

The question is, why do we keep reaching for earthly treasure? I think we know, certainly by now. If you've been following Christ for some time, you know that it doesn't work. Why do we keep reaching for it? Well, Jesus tells us. The next part of this passage is a little bit obscure, but I think it answers the question. It says, The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness?

Jesus says, if your eyes are healthy, you can see. That's the example of a person who can see. He says, if your eyes are unhealthy, your body's full of darkness. In other words, even if the lights are on, you can't see. But the third example is a person who is blind, but they think they can see. He says, if the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness? In other words, if you think you can see, but you're blind, that's the most dangerous place you could be.

When we begin to treasure things, when we take something on the earth, whether it is a thing or a person, when it becomes a treasure, we enter into this kind of blindness. We don't see it happening. It's subtle. I heard Tim Keller say this in Luke chapter 12, Jesus says, watch out for every kind of greed. Who do we say watch out to? We say watch out to people who don't see something coming. Often to our kids who are about to run out into the road, watch out. You throw a Frisbee and it's about to hit someone in the head, watch out, unless you did it on purpose. Watch out.

See, Jesus doesn't say watch out for every kind of sin. He doesn't say watch out for murder, watch out for adultery, because you know when that one is happening. But you see, there's something subtle about greed. It sneaks up on you. You don't even realize that it happened, and suddenly, you're enslaved to it. The treasuring process where we take a thing, and here's the deal, sometimes it's an awesome thing. It's a spouse. It's a child. It's a fulfilling career. It can be a ministry. That thing can become a treasure, and we don't see it happening.

So how do we watch out for that? Well, the first thing that we do is this: we notice our hearts. Has our joy in Christ dissipated? Have we lost our passion for him? Then almost certainly, almost 100% of the time, it is because we have begun to treasure something else more than him. Something else has taken his place, and we might not have even realized it, and it steals our joy. How do we know this? Listen to what Jesus says at the end of this passage.

No one can serve two masters. 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 both God and money. — Matthew 6:24

Jesus is saying, you can't worship me alongside of your treasure. Now you might hear that and think, really? Is he that petty that he won't let me experience joy because I happen to like something else too? Kinda like a parent that won't let their kid have dessert because they didn't finish their vegetables. Is that really the posture that God has with us, arms folded? It's not. Perhaps a better, more fitting analogy would be to say this: a husband can no longer enjoy an intimate, loving relationship with his wife while he's having an affair. He can't. It's not because the wife is withholding joy. It's because the husband has disqualified himself from receiving that joy. He's taken himself out of it. It's not the wife withholding, it's the husband who has removed himself from the ability to receive what would have been natural in that relationship.

What is it that you treasure? Be careful what you choose. You cannot serve God alongside your treasure. So the question is, how do we get it back? That is the million dollar question. I'm gonna go a little bit long today because I don't want to rush through this, but the truth is Tim's not here, Brian's not here, Quig can't talk, so I'm just gonna I'm gonna keep going. Actually, I called Barb. I told her I was gonna be a little long, and she gave me the thumbs up. She's the one that holds it all together.

Application

How do we get it back? If you zoom out from this passage, Jesus tells us there's some stuff you gotta stop doing, and there's some stuff you gotta start doing. The first thing he says is, don't store up treasures on earth. How do we stop doing that? The first thing is we've got to figure out what our treasures are. I think for most of us, you might have a sense of what it is, but for some of us, here's a test that can be helpful. It certainly is for me, and this is also borrowed from Tim Keller. But he says, follow your resources. Look at your calendar. Where does time just disappear for you? I used to supervise a bunch of college students who were young life leaders, and they were forever. I mean, they're the most busy people in the world. College is the busiest time in your life, guys. It really is. They didn't have time. They didn't have time for so many things, and yet, they could play six to eight hours of video games every day. That is consistency. Do you know why? Because that was treasure to them. See, time disappears when you're giving your resources to your treasure. Do you sit down and look at your phone, and two or three hours have gone by, just scrolling through social media, listening to podcasts, watching YouTube? It likely has become treasure to you and to me. It's a trap. It's subtle. Where does your time disappear?

But secondly, where does money disappear and it doesn't hurt? For example, you might look at your grocery bill and nitpick over 5 or $10 you could have saved at the grocery store. Look at your spouse. How dare you? But don't talk to me about that monthly car payment for my car that is my treasure. See, that payment doesn't hurt because it's my treasure. Or maybe you comb through your credit card statement looking for those hidden monthly subscriptions that just sort of stack up over time, save a few bucks here and there. But don't ask me to look at the receipt from the ABC store because you see, I mean, it's my, I need that. Where are your resources going when it doesn't hurt? Likely, that's our treasure. And Jesus says, stop. It's almost so simple. It's frustrating. He's like, don't do that anymore. Don't treasure stuff on earth.

And the apostle Paul gives us the playbook for how we can do this. — Philippians 3:7-8

Whatever was to my profit, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish