Matthew 6:19-24 Undivided Loyalty For God

Most of the time, it is really important in our lives that we have the right perspective, isn't it? It is really easy for us to get mixed up as well.

There is a classic parable that puts it this way: a farmer's horse runs away, bad luck. But the horse returns with more horses, good luck. His son breaks his leg while trying to tame one of the wild horses, bad luck. The army forcibly conscripts all able young men but skips over his now crippled son, good luck. Perspective, you see, changes everything.

And we ask the question, what is our Christian perspective? What is our vantage point that we are relying on as followers of Jesus Christ to see things the way that they really are?

Do we have an eternal perspective influencing all the details of our lives? Now the Bible tells us not only the origin of the world as we know it, but also where it is going. It assures believers that there is a God in heaven who is preparing a place for his people; as one Puritan called it, "the everlasting now." Yet even though we have this biblical perspective to fix our hope upon, so often we divide our loyalties, and we prioritise worldly and temporal things.

We do. And we start saying things like, 'I can only hope in Christ if I am comfortable, if I am wealthy, if I have everything that I need at all times, lacking nothing.' We begin to say, 'I can only thank and praise God so long as I am in perfect health.' And so we forfeit the eternal perspective, the cross-centred perspective that we are supposed to live by. Living with this eternal perspective is the duty of every Christian.

As Thomas Manton said, "A man's greatest care should be for that place where he lives longest; therefore, eternity should be his scope." All those men and women of faith throughout the ages past had this eternal focus. Think of Noah, who was commanded to build the ark before it had even rained on the earth. He built an ark out of reverent fear of the Lord, acting upon his word of salvation and judgement. Only an eternal perspective can lead a man to follow the Lord's word to that extent.

Our father Abraham walked by faith, looking for the city with its foundations, whose architect and builder is God, and who died in the promised land having not yet received the promises. Joseph asked that his bones be carried up from Egypt and buried in the land because he had anchored his hope in God's promise. Moses considered the reproach of Christ greater than all the gain that he could have from Egypt that was set out before him. And Christ himself, who for the joy set before him endured the cross. You see, our focus must be undivided when it comes to God.

In the context of Matthew 6, we have considered the necessity of the Christian living as one who is aware that they are in the presence of God. To have this perspective, this vantage point means that we will not seek the praise and applause of men, but rather our Father who sees what is done even in secret. And here in these verses we have yet another angle on essentially the same theme. From verse 19, Jesus transitions to teaching about the disciples' need to live with undivided loyalty to God; to live for and pursue things that last. And we are questioned here over what we have set our hearts upon, and it is put to us in a binary way: zeros and ones, an either-or decision. It is a straight dichotomy.

Either you are living for God and eternal reward, or you are living for this world. This is why Jesus says that a person has one of two masters; you are a slave to either one of them, but not both. Following one means that you are storing up treasures in heaven and seeking eternal reward as your primary focus.

The other is treasure on earth, which in the end perishes; it fades; it cannot last. One is looking to the light so that your whole person would be fully devoted to God; the other is full of darkness, looking only at worldly gain.

And so Jesus presents two paths before us, which we must choose to walk. One, in other language, is called the narrow way. This is the way for those who have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as their salvation from sin. These are those whose robes have been made clean in the blood of the lamb. They are the ones who are slaves to righteousness.

These are those who, like Jonathan Edwards said, have eternity stamped upon their eyeballs. Their life is oriented with a view to the end. It is orientated in view of Jesus Christ, who is himself the greatest jewel and treasure worth living for and a delight above all delights.

But on the broad way, there are those who live for the world. They delight in the idolatries that man produces out of the idol factory of the heart. They exchange the truth of God for a lie; they worship their gold, whether they possess much of it or little of it; they walk in darkness; they live according to the prince of the power of the air; their god is their belly. Their appetites and desires control them.

But Jesus says that man was made not for gold, but for God, and to know the everlasting God. And so, brothers and sisters, here is something like a warrant of fitness for our Christian lives so that we might regain a proper perspective should we have lost it. We want to walk in the light just as He is in the light; we want our time, our resources, our wealth, our minds, all to be orientated so that we can answer to God someday with a clear conscience about what we have done with that which he has entrusted us with.

Now, Matthew's patterns of three continue. So we find three divisions in this present section; three illustrations that we can begin to work through.

At the Heart Of the Matter Is the Heart

The first heading we come to is: At the heart of the matter is the heart. Read with me again in Matthew 6:19: "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 neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

Here is one of Scripture’s plain passages in which the concept of human desire is attributed in a metaphorical way to the heart. God says to Ezekiel in Ezekiel 3:10, "Son of man, take into your heart all my words which I will speak to you." The heart is the fountainhead of desire. Here Jesus is saying that where the bow of the heart is aimed, the arrow does fly; as the heart is directed, so is the whole person.

This is what Jesus means by one's treasure being where one's heart is. It is to say that I can see what your heart's desire is just by looking at where the accumulation of treasure is in your life; it reveals all. It is like the man in Luke 12:21 who stores up treasure for himself and is not rich towards God. His heart is where his treasure is; it reveals what was in his heart.

So Jesus says the primary sign of divided loyalties is in the evidence itself; it is the fruit. When we are only in church for half the year, despite having every ability to prioritise, it reveals the desires of our heart. When we waste away thousands of dollars upon ourselves but are not generous towards God's purposes, we betray our heart's desires. You see, "the proof is in the pudding" is another way of saying it.

Now in this present context, there is a clear and obvious parallel to what has come before. So if you notice that there is a link here between the praise of man that the hypocrite sought in verses one to eighteen that we have considered already: that man who sought the praise of man, well, his treasure in that section was on earth. Here is the link. How so? Well, that hypocrite's concern was really all about what others thought about him. He had no interest in what God, who sees all, thought of him.

But not you, says Christ. It is not to be that way with you. No. Instead, he says, now your treasure, that is, what you seek, what you store up, what you focus upon, if it is earthly, it can never last.

It is subject to change, to decay, to rot, to perishing. Instead, the Christian is one whose heart is to be set on eternal things. They think to themselves, as Jesus later says in Matthew 16:26, "For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?" And so that is the meaning of this section. There is first a negative injunction, do not, verse nineteen, and then a positive injunction, but do, in verse twenty.

The principle is simple. Do not revolve your life around the temporary things of this world; rather, orientate your life towards the affairs of the heavenly life, a life lived with an eye to what can be done for God.

Why? Well, the Christian is already a citizen of that heavenly country. Are we not? And so, we ought to invest ourselves in the affairs of that country. The Father has issued the believer’s passport to this celestial city; the Son has stamped and sealed it with his own blood when he died for our sins, so that it cannot be revoked; the Spirit, indwelling, is sent from the Father and the Son, issuing us this ticket to the celestial city, our salvation.

This is the reality of the gospel, so we are no longer living for this world, but for the next. Colossians 3:2 says, "Set your mind on things above, not things that are on the earth." For this world is under a sentence of death that is passing away; it will be purified with fire, and all that belongs to this present age will cease to be. And so, as Calvin says of the Christian, "to allow their souls to grovel on earth would be inconsistent and unworthy of those whose treasure is in heaven."

What does it mean, though, to put one's treasure in heaven? Well, it means when a Christian goes to buy a farm, they want to know whether there is a sound church nearby that they can take their family to, that they can meet with. It means when the kids ask to play sport on a Sunday morning, we tell them no; that time belongs to God. It means when the media we consume contains in it that which God expressly disapproves of, we turn it off so that our minds might be renewed.

It is in all the details. It means we will only enter romantic relationships with those who are in the Lord, we marry only in the Lord. It means that we give back to God what he has given to us by way of time and resources for his church. It is all these things.

The Eye Is the Lamp Of the Body

A second point emerging from the text is this: the eye is the lamp of the body. Again we read in verse twenty-two, "The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, 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 that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness." This saying of Christ requires a little more explanation than the last; it is not quite as obvious.

At first reading, it may seem out of place, sandwiched between two much clearer statements that are on our theme. However, I think this is mistaken. I take this saying here, "the eye is the lamp of the body", to develop the idea from the previous verse: where one's treasure is, their heart is also. How so? Well, Jesus is illustrating that in our lives we have a choice about what to focus on.

First, it was a choice over whether we are focusing upon heavenly things or earthly things, and shortly in verse twenty-four, it is going to be a choice over God or wealth. And so here Jesus is helping us understand how a person can have undivided devotion to God. It is that they must see clearly; they must distinguish between the way of light, which is following after the things of God, and that and the way of darkness, which is the way of the world. It is very simple, and Jesus' use of the eye drives home the point, because the eye is a guide to the person's whole body, is it not?

All other members of our bodies, from head to toe, depend on the information that the eye perceives. If the eye functions properly, then we can go about our lives unhindered; but if we are blind, we cannot see the light, and the whole body is immobilised in a way because of that. The eye is not clear. Do you see?

The principle Jesus is laying down is best stated as a question, I think. Is your eye, spiritually speaking, clear? Are you perceiving the world as things really are from an eternal perspective? So we must test ourselves, brothers and sisters. Are we still fixing our eyes on Jesus, or in our walk of faith have we become distracted by cares, worries, pursuits contrary to the faith? See, a Christian man or woman who lets their eyes drift from Christ may find themselves in something of a spiritual wilderness.

Suddenly, they may see that their work has utterly consumed their life. Suddenly, church attendance becomes a subordinate Christian Sunday chore; Bibles gather dust; prayer ceases; Satan is having a field day.

The spiritual armour of God is substituted with worldly attire. You see, friends, sinners as we are, we are prone to drift. We need to ensure that our focus is on the things of God so that we would not be like Peter, who, the moment his focus drifted from the Lord and fear entered his heart, slipped into the water. Our eyes must be upon him. Look upon Jesus, who is the light, and your whole person will be in the light. That is the promise.

May we always say, as David in Psalm 27:1, "The Lord is my light and my salvation." We want our whole body to be walking in the day, walking in the light of His glory, so that our eyes' focus would be upon Him. That is the point.

It is like Pilgrim in Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress." When he drifts from the path, that is when he gets into trouble. When his eyes fall from the path to the celestial city, he gets into trouble; he loses assurance; he is tempted, and so on. We must never forget that this world is only our temporary home.

Therefore, do not attach your heart to things. You are a pilgrim Christian. We must walk by faith and focus on the things which are unseen; fix our hope upon the glories that are in Christ; live for Him and allow that to colour and permeate all of our thinking and affections. As the prophet said in Isaiah 2:5, "Come, house of Jacob, let us walk in the light of the Lord."

How else do you think that Abraham was able, in obedience, to take Isaac, his only son that he had waited some twenty years to be born or more, and offer him up, give him back to God? How was Abraham able to do that? It is because he understood that the life of faith is a pilgrim's life, dependent and following the Lord's counsel and will. His heart was fixed on Christ, the things of God, on eternity. And so when I keep hearing Christians complain about the state of the world, or how much things have degraded, or how their politicians have failed them, I mourn that they are not setting their hearts on the world to come, but on temporal things.

Yes, we can care about the present environment we have, and politics, and so on, but when it causes the Christian's heart to sink into despondency and despair, it is wrong. And so daily news consumes them; worries overtake them; the drift begins to happen. They forget that God is sovereign; they forget that Christ rose from the dead; they forget that he is seated on the throne; they forget that he is coming again. So the focus of one's heart leads the whole person into the light or into the darkness. Do you see?

So my counsel is this: travel light, brothers and sisters. Travel light and walk in the light. We are not here for long. Every one of our works in Christ, as a born-again believer, will undergo the lamb's purifying fire. The wood, the hay, the stubble will quickly burn up; only what is done for Christ will last.

Jesus said in John 12:35, "For a little while longer the Light is among you. Walk while you have the Light, so that darkness will not overtake you; he who walks in darkness does not know where he goes."

Devoted To One Master

Finally, a third heading, in verse twenty-four: devoted to one master. "No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth." In 1975, six armed gunmen broke into the deposit boxes where people would store their valuables in a London bank. They stole the valuables, totalling a value of about seven million dollars. One lady whose jewellery was supposedly worth five hundred thousand dollars that was stored in these safety deposit boxes wailed and had these words to say: "Everything I had was in there. My whole life was in that box."

So as one mother said to her screaming child in a store, denied the toy truck that he wanted, 'may we not hang our hearts on things.'

Now Jesus is not saying that you cannot own a house; we see Christians in the New Testament who own homes. We see wealthy Christians, wealthy people in the Bible. Jesus is not banning you from financial planning; he is not banning you from saving up for when you have less. Proverbs 6:6-8: "Go to the ant, O sluggard, observe her ways and be wise, which, having no chief, officer, or ruler, prepares her food in the summer, gathers her provision in the harvest."

A Christian has liberty to earn, to spend, to invest, to multiply; what they are not permitted to do is hang their hearts on those things, and there is a big difference, a big difference. And that is the point. Those things are so valueless compared to the jewel which is Christ and his kingdom.

So Paul writes to Timothy in 1 Timothy 6:17, "Instruct those who are rich", and, dear friends, that is us; we are the one percent when the world is taken into the equation, that is us, "instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy. Instruct them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous, to be ready to share, storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is life indeed."

They say that the last thing a man will hand over to God is his wallet; but it is not really the wallet, is it? It is what it represents, because a man's wealth represents his personal sovereignty. Money buys us freedom, in a way of speaking. When we make it available for God to use, we are rendering to him the sovereignty that people like to keep for themselves. We are choosing to serve God rather than wealth when we do that.

So you see, here in Matthew 6:24, Jesus is bringing these three sections together that we have been looking at, because the person who lives only for the eye of the Father who is in secret is the same person whose treasure is in heaven, who is the same person whose eye is full of light, whose affections are heavenly, and it is the same person who serves God alone as their master. They are not slaves to anything but God.

So are our bank accounts set aside for God? Just like our time, can it be taken from us by God? And we are happy, we are delighted by it. Maybe we need to ask the question if there are further avenues in which we can support gospel work.

The warning is: when a person's heart is set on acquiring wealth and riches, their heart will simultaneously hate God, be drawn away from God. And we know, of course, that they will be miserable as well because our souls were actually created by God, and we were made to know him. The sinner who tries to fill that void with riches finds that it cannot satisfy, and they want more and more and more.

Solomon wrote, "He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves abundance with its income." So let us, friends, be rich towards God; let us live for that which is eternal; let us have undivided loyalty to him, so that nothing would be competing for our affections.