Reformed Baptist Church in O'Fallon, Missouri
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A Biblical view of money – Where is Your Treasure?

Sermon Transcript

The following is a lightly edited transcript generated from the audio; it may contain small errors.

Opening

Today is going to be from Matthew 6, if you want to turn there. My name is Justus. I’m one of the pastors here, and Pastor Mike is recovering from shoulder surgery. So you’re going to get—this is part one of probably a four-part series here. So over the next several weeks, we’re going to be diving into a topic that a lot of pastors, some pastors maybe love to talk about. A lot of pastors probably hate to talk about it. If you’re a prosperity gospel preacher, you probably love to talk about money, but for the wrong reasons. But for a lot of other pastors, myself included, we don’t often like to talk about it for at least a couple of reasons. First, people can get weird about money. It can be divisive, inflammatory, and really set people off, and it can even make people leave the church. And second, a lot of times pastors are afraid that people in the church are going to be thinking, you know, that pastor’s after my money. You see it all the time on Google reviews and on the internet and everything. You know, that pastor is after my money. Like, you know, he doesn’t need to talk about money. And so that can sit in the back of the mind as a pastor as you’re getting ready to preach. You’re like, I don’t want my congregation to think that I’m just chasing their money. Because that’s not what’s going on, and we don’t want to be accused of it. [audio unclear] So, as we do that, I’m hoping to talk about more than, I think, a lot of times when people hear a sermon on money, it’s like, okay, it is a sermon on giving, right? And so, it’s like, all right, they’re doing this because they need to get more funds into the church. And it’s focused on just giving, but I actually want to take over the next four or five weeks a comprehensive look at wealth, riches, money, and everything that Scripture has to say about it. So there will probably be one message in there focused on the giving or tithing side, and the rest are going to be other things. So Matthew chapter 6 is where we are going to start today if you want to turn there. All right, from God’s Word, church, verse 19, this is Jesus speaking:

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. 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! 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. For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! Do not worry then, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear for clothing?” For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

(Matthew 6:19–34, NASB)

Lord, help these truths that we’re reading in your Word to sink into our hearts deeply as we just sung and asked. Lord, I pray that for us today as a church, I pray that for the pulpits across our community and country and around the world, to our brothers and sisters in Belize and over in Southeast Asia, God, that as the Word is preached, it would be declared boldly, that you would speak to your people and build your church. I pray this in your name, Jesus. Amen.

Do Not Store Up Treasures on Earth

So, this passage, the second half that we end with, it’s talking about anxiety, not being anxious, and it’s tied directly into Jesus talking about money. And I believe that is because money is one of the greatest causes of anxiety for most people. How are we going to pay these bills? How will we put food on the table? How are we going to pay the mortgage? How are we going to be able to afford to raise and take care of our kids? Has anyone ever been anxious about money before? Raise your hand. Most of us, right? Most of us have at least at one point, and there’s probably those of us in this room right now that are. There’s a lot of anxiety that can be connected to finances. And so I was reading online some polls on finances and anxiety. The four greatest worries, according to the latest polls, that Americans have all have to do with money. All four. Inflation and the cost of living, the economy and jobs, the cost of healthcare, and the cost of housing. Those are the top four concerns according to the last poll that I read. All of those things are making Americans anxious. And where does anxiety come from? It comes from the heart. It comes from your heart. It is the heart doubting God’s faithfulness. It is the heart doubting God’s goodness. [audio unclear] It’s really all about your heart. And where your treasure is reveals your heart. So if you take a look at your treasure and where it’s going, you will learn a lot. So what does it mean to store up treasures on earth? That’s one of the things we’re going to be exploring—what does it mean to store up treasures on earth and what does it mean to store up treasures in heaven—over the next four weeks. But to store up, it’s talking here on earth means to gather and lay up, heaping up, accumulating riches, kind of building your kingdom for your enjoyment, maybe a bigger house, fancier car, fancier vacation, putting away money you’ll never use. Jesus said we shouldn’t be storing up all of this wealth and riches for ourselves here on earth, and then he tells us why. He says here on earth moth and rust destroy, thieves break in and steal. So the answer to this is not like, oh, let’s figure out how to keep the bugs out, let’s figure out how to keep the salty air and the moisture out, make sure we have a great security system. No, he’s saying everything on the earth is temporary. It is temporary. Your life, as James says, is but a vapor. But a vapor. You may be here today and gone tomorrow.

The Rich Fool

Let’s look at Luke chapter 12, a parallel passage to this one. You want to turn to Luke? In Luke chapter 12, verse 15, we’ll read that.

Then He said to them, “Beware, and be on your guard against every form of greed; for not even when one has an abundance does his life consist of his possessions.” And He told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man was very productive. And he began reasoning to himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no place to store my crops?’ Then he said, ‘This is what I will do: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink and be merry.”’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your soul is required of you; and now who will own what you have prepared?’ So is the man who stores up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”

(Luke 12:15–21, NASB)

And then Jesus goes on and talks about anxiety and not worrying and trusting the Lord just as he did in Matthew 6. But this man was building bigger and bigger barns to store more and more riches, and then came to an end and he didn’t get to enjoy his riches. What riches you accumulate on this earth are temporary. They will not last. And your enjoyment of them will not last. Because you will not last. Your life is but a vapor. But what will last? Jesus says we are to store up for ourselves treasures in heaven, where things are not going to come to an end, where decay does not happen, where things are not stolen. And then Jesus says the heart of the matter: he says where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. So where you put your money follows, which seems natural. The things that we love, we put money into.

Follow the Money Trail

If you love to watch sports, you probably sink money into it. I was just thinking the other day, if you want to watch all the NFL games this year, I think there’s like 10 [audio unclear] works, and so they put their money into it. Whether you’re going to games, you’re paying for packages, if you love fashion and looking good, you probably spend money on clothes and makeup and things that go along with that. If you love cars, you probably end up spending money on your cars, at least more than those who view vehicles as just utility. But the point is, we put money into the things we love. And that is what Jesus is saying here. It’s not the full extent of it. He says, where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. So you can look at it as a way of helping you identify where your heart is. The heart is deceitful, right? We can be easily deceived and not know where our heart is really at. But if we follow the money trail, if we sit down and we see where our money’s going, that can actually help us see where our heart is. So if you go and you sit down and you pull out your budget and you look at how you spend your money, you should be able to identify through that a lot of the things that you love and the things that are most important to you. This is a good way actually to find idols in your life: follow the money trail.

Why a Budget Helps

But before I go further on this, I want to talk about budgets, since we’re talking about looking at your budget and how you spend money. The Bible does not expressly say you should have a budget. But it is a very useful tool that I think far too many Christians don’t use. As I talk about money in various aspects, I want to point back to having a budget and why I think every Christian should have one. Today’s technology makes it really easy, actually, to have a budget. And I think every believer should have one and should endeavor to keep it, and I’ll explain why. With a budget, you look at what you’re bringing in, and then you divvy it up. Instead of just spending whatever amount on whatever you think you might need in the moment, you figure out instead, ahead of time, all the things that you’re going to need, and how to put your money towards it, and then figure out how to use what is left over. It helps in marriages, as when you’re married, it’s no longer his money and her money. All of it belongs together to the husband and the wife. But without a budget, how do you know if you can spend money on this thing or that thing? Money is like one of the number one reasons for divorce in our country because people end up spending money and disagreeing on money and not having enough money. But if you budget, it helps. You can know here’s how much we’re supposed to spend. So if a husband goes out and buys a set of golf clubs and you don’t have a budget, he just robbed his family’s food for the week. If the wife goes out and gets her nails done and gets a massage, she’s just taken money from her children’s education. If you don’t have a budget, unless you’re just filthy rich, you won’t know and you won’t have the money when you need it. But if you have a budget set up correctly, a husband and wife, they can operate much more freely with the funds God has given them because they can both look at it and say, hey, there’s this much to spend this month, how much do we have to spend on food, on these things, and they can figure out, should I make this purchase? Or we have this much left to spend over here, so you know what, I really shouldn’t be spending money on this. So having a budget is good in that regard, but it also lets you set priorities with your money, which is vitally important for anyone married or unmarried. And in the context of this passage, having a budget helps you actually see—over the years as I’ve talked to people, how many people have no idea where their money’s going. They just don’t know. And honestly, if you don’t have a budget, you aren’t going to know. And a lot of people thought, well, I think I give about this much and I’m doing this with the church. And you sit down and look at the budget and you’re like, oh, wow, I’m spending way more money here and here than I thought, and I’m actually not doing a lot of the things I thought I was with my money. The budget helps with that. Helps you see where your heart is. Helps you see how you’ve set yourself up to spend money, for one, and then also how you’re actually spending your money when you sit down and look at it. So you can see a bit of where your heart is by seeing where your money is going. So budgets are great. If you don’t have a budget, if you are struggling with your budget, come and talk to me or one of our deacons. We would love to help you get set up with a budget.

The Heart Follows the Treasure

But where is your heart? That is the question. And it’s one we often try to avoid because we are afraid of the answer. It’s a scary thing when you see your heart, when the Lord kind of shows you a piece of your heart and you’re like, ooh, that’s kind of black and ugly. It can be scary. And so a lot of times we would rather avoid it. We don’t want to know the answer. And I think that’s one of the reasons we don’t want to look at a budget. We don’t want to see our spending. We’re afraid of what it will reveal. If we’ve set up idols and we see it as that, then we’re forced to knock them down if we’re going to follow Jesus. And idols, as much as we should want to smash them, they’re idols for a reason: we love them, right? So as Jesus said, he’s pointing us to look at our hearts. And a close examination of our actions helps us see the heart. A close look at the heart will help us see where we’re off. We’re not supposed to live by feelings, right? It’s like marriage. We don’t follow our feelings. They’re important, but we don’t follow them. When our feelings are not lining up with where they should be, then we know something’s off in our heart, and our heart needs to be fixed. So looking at this passage, I believe we see one of the ways in which we can work on our hearts: where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. So if you start spending your money, you’re putting your treasure where you should. You’re like, okay, God, I should be using my money in this way. When you start doing it, your heart will eventually start to follow. If you start giving to missions work, your heart attaches itself to that work. If you start giving to your church, your heart starts to attach itself to your church. When you start putting money towards your children’s education, your heart starts to get involved. When you find in your marriage, for example, your heart’s cold towards your wife, do you say, well, I guess I should divorce her and find someone else because I don’t love her anymore? I mean, a lot of people do, but that’s wrong, amen. That’s wrong. That’s not what we’re supposed to do. That’s sin. You’ve been commanded to love her. And so if your heart is cold towards her, you don’t feel desire for her, the answer is not to leave her. The answer is you need to start pursuing her. You need to start praying for your heart and asking the Lord to renew your affection and then doing all the things as if you really love her and ask the Lord to help your heart to catch up. As you do that, your heart comes along as you do those actions of love. And that’s how things work with money too. A lot of times we stop giving to the Lord’s work because of our heart. We stop giving to the Lord’s work because our heart grows interested in something else. We should do what’s right and what’s good, what is wise and what is true. We obey the Lord with the money he’s given us. And then as we do that, our heart comes along. Our heart comes along. And that only makes sense. Most of the time, we’ve worked hard for our money. You all work hard for your money? You feel like you work hard for your money? Yeah, you do. And you’ve spent time earning, and so when you give it to something, we put so much into getting it that we care greatly about whatever we end up giving it to, whatever we end up spending it on, because you know how hard you work to get it. We’re spending our time, our energy, our effort towards whatever we end up giving to.

And so something I learned a while back regarding events and summer camps: if people don’t have any skin in the game, they’re much less likely to care. If they don’t pay anything for something, they’re less likely to show up. We used to, for a little while, we gave out some like full summer camp scholarships, full scholarships for different things. And sometimes the kids didn’t even show up to go to camp. That was crazy. But if you give like a partial scholarship and they had to go even just raise 50 bucks or something like that, they were there. They had to go work to get it, right? And so we do things like that with the Foundations Conference. I think a year or two, we made it free and we had a bunch of people sign up and not come. And then we made it 10 bucks, and if you paid, you know, somebody paid, they were there. It’s crazy, just 10 bucks. But when you put your money into something, your heart moves there because you work hard for your money. So again, we can see where our heart is by looking at where our money goes. And we can also set our heart where it needs to go by putting money where it should go.

Wealth as a Blessing and a Danger

The heart is easily deceived, church. We live in America. Our hearts have been influenced by our culture. And we have a very wealthy culture, the wealthiest that’s ever existed in history. And the American dream is the bigger house, the nicer car, the lavish vacations, retiring at 65, being able to go and do whatever you want. And let me say, there is nothing wrong with being wealthy or having a bigger house or a nicer car or going on vacations. Those things are actually wonderful blessings from the Lord. But you need to ask yourself why you want those things, and we need to make sure we guard our hearts. Wealth and riches can be used greatly for God’s glory. Think of the schools and churches that could be built and funded with great wealth, for example. There are over 3 billion people in the world who have never heard the gospel or met a Christian. 3 billion. We call them the unreached. Guess what? It will cost money. It will take money to reach them. We’ve been commanded to be fruitful and multiply, and the more kids you have, the more useful a larger house is. A bigger house can also be used to show great hospitality. The right vehicle can be very useful to haul lots of people, to get specific jobs done, or simply not break down all the time, so you don’t have to constantly deal with that. And vacations can be a great way for families to bond and for people to recharge and for us to enjoy the many wonders of God’s creation. These are all blessings, but people can seek wealth and riches for their own glory, for their own desires and for their own lusts. And they want those things for those reasons. And again, the heart can be hard to judge sometimes. So we need to be careful and take a look at our heart, which again I think is where having a budget and seeing how you spend what God has given you can be a great help in seeing where your heart is. The American dream, which so many are chasing after, makes their God money. Money becomes their God. They continue to seek more and more not for God’s glory, but for their own comforts and desires.

Two Pitfalls

And so back in the passage in Matthew, we have two commands. Do not store up treasure for yourself on earth, and then store up treasure for yourself in heaven. Two closely connected things. So to avoid laying treasures on earth we have to ask the other question and find the answer to it. What does it mean to lay up treasures in heaven? And that’s something we’re going to do in future weeks. But I want to spend the rest of this morning talking about two pitfalls that I think have plagued the church here in our country. The first is that a lot of the church has largely ignored this command from Jesus, not storing up treasures for ourselves on earth. Christians have pursued wealth and riches for their own pleasures and gains and spend money on things that they do not need. But of course like all sin, we make sure we do a good job of justifying those things to ourselves and others. And we spend money that we do not have to go on a vacation we cannot afford. We justify it by saying, you know, well, we haven’t had a vacation for a while. We really need a break. We just want to treat ourselves, whatever you want to insert there. Maybe we’ll go and pamper ourselves with something new and fancy. Again, a massage, a nicer car, a shiny grill, a set of new tools, things that may be much needed, but often are not. And often if we were to look at it we would see, you know what, that’s not a priority. And you’re online, it’s like DoorDash, and pay like a dollar twenty-four a month for however long. What in the world? But that makes it easy for people. They see that, oh, a dollar twenty a month. And they start spending money that they don’t have on things they don’t need. You can get a monthly payment set up for almost anything. So, even if you don’t have the money in that moment, don’t worry about it. Get it now, pay it off over the next year. It’s called spending money you don’t have, often for things you don’t need. People buy houses they cannot afford, and I understand that right now our housing market is crazy, but people buy houses they can’t afford, cars they can’t afford, phones they can’t afford, on and on and on you could go. The point is not that the stuff is bad, it’s that we should look at our hearts. So often our hearts crave more and more and more, and the enemy feeds on this, and our culture promotes it. We go after more and more stuff for our time here on earth, laying it up. This is a pitfall we must avoid. It is dangerous to your soul. The love of money, Paul says in 1 Timothy, is the root of all kinds of evil. You cannot serve both God and money. This is the first pitfall, storing up treasures for yourselves on earth.

Let’s talk about the second though, which I think is sort of the flip-side response that seeks to obey the command not to lay up treasures for yourselves on earth, but also neglects much of what the rest of Scripture says about wealth. And this response is something I would say I was caught up in myself for a while. I’ve heard it called poverty theology before. But this would be not thinking about anything here on earth and therefore just being poor and not really concerned about money at all other than just, you know, making it. As long as I can make it from paycheck to paycheck, I’m fine. I’ll trust the Lord. And it can sound noble. Like trust God and be okay with being poor. So how could that be wrong? How can it be wrong to trust God? How can it be wrong to be fine being poor if that’s what God has given you in life? And of course, the answer is that we need to trust God. I’m not saying we shouldn’t. And that we should be content in whatever circumstances God places us in. But the mindset here is wrong. As I said, it often ignores much of what Scripture says about money. If you think of the parable of the talents, which we’ll look at in the coming weeks, the master gave his servants a certain amount of money and he had them get to work while he was gone. And when he came back, two of the servants had been faithful and had doubled his money. And the last one was called a wicked and lazy servant. Why? Why was he called wicked and lazy? What did he do? He buried money in the ground. He didn’t even put it in with a bank for interest. He didn’t do anything with it. He didn’t work with it as he was asked. And there’s a lot of applications that can be made from here, which we’ll get into in future weeks, but they were all asked to go and make money. So God gives us all that we have and we’re to use it for his glory. The funds we have, we are to steward well. Money is just a tool, church, it’s a resource. And like so many other tools and resources, we ought to use it for God’s glory. And the more resources and the more tools you have, generally speaking, the more you can do for God’s glory and for his kingdom. If you think about it for a moment, if the church needs a new parking lot, what do we need to get the parking lot done? Money. Our church needs a new parking lot. If the church wanted to start a school or a college or a new building, what do we need? We need money. If someone wants to go on a mission trip, what do they need? They need money. If you want to have multiple children and you want to take care of them well, what do you need? You need money. What do the Cooks need to reach the Lono people in Southeast Asia? They need money. We support them, right? As a church, individuals in this church support them so that they can go and take the gospel. We also support Reach in helping turn people from abortion. They need funds to do that so that they can help moms choose to keep their kids and not kill their children. So money is not the only resource needed to do those things, but it is necessary for all of them. It is a useful tool, and if you’re in poverty, you won’t have much of it to help accomplish these things. So we need to love God, not money, but we shouldn’t be afraid of money either. We should not be afraid of money. We should not be indifferent about it. God created you to work and to work hard. And he knows what is needed to provide for you and your family. So you don’t have to be afraid to go out and put your hand to the plow and get to work. You go and you be faithful to what he’s called you to do and then you trust him to provide. God has called you to use money for his glory. So as we walk through other passages in the coming weeks, whatever side of the coin you’re on, whether you’re like, I just don’t care about money, or maybe you care a little too much, I encourage you to pay close attention to God’s Word and what he expects from you regarding the money that he has entrusted you with. We’ll look at what Scripture says about wealth and how we love and trust with our finances, looking at debt, lending, providing for family, inheritance, investing, saving, giving, tithing, generosity, etc. Did you know, church, that there is over 20 trillion dollars in the hands of Christians in our country? 20 trillion. That’s a lot of money. There’s a lot of money. And so we need to get this right. The church needs to get this right. We need to use money correctly in the way that God has intended.

Probe Your Heart

So I would guess as we talk about these things, some of them will be encouraging, some convicting, some surprising, but looking forward to our walk. But as we get ready to close this morning, I want to encourage everyone to probe your heart because it all comes back to the heart. You can learn all this other stuff, but if your heart is not in the right place, you’re not going to respond in obedience. So two things: probe your heart. First, do you have [audio unclear]? He says in verse 24 of Matthew 6, “No one can serve two masters.” You can’t serve God and money. You can’t love God and love money. That’s why Scripture again says, as we read a moment ago in 1 Timothy, the love of money is the root of all sorts of evil, and that by longing for it some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. The love of money keeps you from a love of God. And when you look at what the church in America gives and how it spends its money, it’s clear that there is a major heart problem. We’ll talk about some of those percentages in future weeks, but it is very clear that there is a love of money in the church in America. So ask yourself today, do you love money? Do you love money, or do you love God? Whom do you serve, and where is really your treasure? And as you ask yourself that, just ask God, God help me to see, help me to see today, help me to see in the coming weeks as we look at Scriptures and what you have to say about money, and make sure that my heart is for you and not for myself, not for my pleasures, not for money. Our heart should say, I love you, Lord, this is all from you, so what do you want me to do with it? So the first thing is your heart. What do you love? The second thing is trust. In verses 25 through 34, Jesus is talking about anxiety with money. Do you trust God with your money? Do you trust him to provide what you need? Jesus says in the second half of Matthew 6 that worrying will not help us, being anxious will not help us. Are you one of little faith?

Listen, everyone: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Right? We broke God’s law. We rebelled against him. And even while we were doing that, Jesus went and he bore our sin upon himself and he died for us. He paid the price that we might find salvation in him. And so hell is where we should be for our sins. And instead, for all who trust in Jesus, eternal life is what we get. Eternity in heaven with no weeping or fear or pain, where treasures don’t get destroyed. Isn’t God’s love and care for us amazing, church? It is. So if you’re here this morning and you’ve not trusted in Jesus, I encourage you to call on him. Confess with your mouth he is Lord, and believe in your heart that you will be saved. And church, if we can trust him with our souls, if we know he loves us, if we know that he will never leave or forsake us, and when we see what he says here in Matthew, how can we not trust him to provide what we need? I know it can be hard, but he will. He’s promised right here. “If God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you?” So don’t worry about what you’re going to eat, what you’re going to drink, and what you’re going to wear, church. Those who don’t know Christ, they run after all of those things, but your heavenly Father knows that you need them. He knows what you need. So what is the cure for anxiety, and anxiety with finances? It is to trust the Lord. You must trust. Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you. That’s what Jesus said. Seek it in all things and seek to use your money for his kingdom and his righteousness. Stop worrying about tomorrow. Tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. It doesn’t mean stop working hard. God’s called you to work hard, but you need to stop worrying and trust. It doesn’t mean to not be obedient with your finances, but stop worrying.

So I encourage, church, to check your heart this morning. Do you have money problems because you love money too much? Do you love the stuff you can buy with it too much? Or do you have money and anxiety problems because you weren’t trusting the Lord? Are you trusting in Jesus or are you trusting in yourself, in Christ or in money? And church, what should you do if you find your heart is not where it should be? What do Christians do? They repent. They repent. So if you find your heart is not in the right spot, you repent. This is what Christians do. This is what we do when we sin. Repentance is turning away from sin and it starts with confession, with crying out to the Lord, but it doesn’t end there. It doesn’t end there. So I encourage you as you probe your heart, whatever you find, take some time today, confess it to the Lord. When the service is over, confess to your spouse, confess to a friend, and then look at what you need to do to change. That’s part of repentance. Repentance is a turn. So first you have to recognize, hmm, this is a problem, this is wrong. I am walking the wrong way, I’m in sin. So you confess it, you actually speak it, you tell the Lord, hey Lord, I’ve done this, I am doing this. And then the repentance, right, to be complete, you turn. So you stop doing it, you change. And that requires help from the Lord, church. So you need to call out to the Lord and ask him to help. But I encourage you to do that because if you don’t, in the end, you will end up only hardening your heart even more because no real repentance has happened. This is what happens when we hear God’s Word over and over on particular subjects and we don’t repent and we don’t confess. Guess what happens? It builds up another layer of hardness, another layer of hardness. And I think a lot of people sit in church for years hearing God’s Word, and they didn’t say yes, they didn’t say yes, they didn’t say yes, and they get hard and they get calloused, and the longer it goes on, the harder it is. So I encourage you, don’t do that. If you hear from the Lord, do not harden your heart, respond. Confess, repent, turn, ask him to change your heart. So as we wrap up, I encourage you to come back and listen to the next sermon as we go through how to seek Christ’s kingdom and righteousness with our money. We’re going to be doing that, but today, check your heart, ask the Lord to show it to you, and repent if needed. Let’s pray.

Closing Prayer

Lord Jesus, I pray that you would help us to see our hearts clearly, especially on this issue. Lord, if any of us here are attached to our money, I pray that you would set us free. Set us free from a love of money. Set us free from fear. Help us to trust in you. Our desire, Lord, is to honor you and love you with all that we have. And we need you, Spirit, to make this happen. Fill us and cause our hearts to burn for you. We also pray, Lord, for anyone here that doesn’t know you, please call them from darkness to light. Whether they’re hearing the gospel for the first time today or they’ve been sitting in churches for 70 years, quicken them and call them to you, Lord. And Jesus, we know you’re the only one that can break hard hearts and break through calluses. And so, Lord, this morning and in the coming weeks as we talk about these things, Lord, and as this year as we fight to slay the dragons, Lord, some of those dragons have put up really tough defenses in our hearts. Our hearts have been hardened from saying no over and over on various things. And we need your grace and your mercy, Lord. We need you to break down those walls in our hearts, break through the calluses, give us tender hearts as a church, Lord, to respond to your Word. Let us not hear it and be unchanged. Holy Spirit, move our hearts to surrender and trust you. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.