June 23, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We are going to spend the next two weeks together as a church reading Jesus\u2019 teachings in the Sermon on the Mount! The Sermon on the Mount is the first of Jesus\u2019 major teachings recorded in the gospel of Matthew. In it, Jesus explains the ethics and values of the kingdom of Heaven as opposed to the ethics and values of the world. The values and principles that are to govern our lives as followers of Jesus and citizens of the kingdom of Heaven are wildly different from those that govern the various cultures of our world, including the culture in which we live. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over the next two weeks, allow the words of the Lord Jesus to challenge the way you think, expose the worldly and idolatrous values and desires of your heart, and transform you to live in the new way that He has laid before us!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this passage Jesus is telling us how we should spend our time, devotion, and energy: not striving to attain more stuff, more money, more temporary and fleeting things of earth, but striving to pile up for ourselves treasure in heaven! Jesus is calling us here to set our minds and hearts on eternity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jesus\u2019 illustration about the eye being the lamp of the body means that how we see things determines the health of our lives overall. If we see rightly, from an eternal perspective, we will lead healthy, full lives; if our perception of life and the world is that it\u2019s all about the here and now, acquiring as much stuff as possible before we die, our lives will be full of darkness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Again Jesus uses an illustration to get his point across, concluding that we cannot serve both God and money. We cannot seek to lay up treasures for ourselves on earth\u00a0and<\/em> seek the kingdom of heaven; it will be one or the other.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesus says that where our treasure is, our hearts will be also. When we see things rightly, perceiving clearly, we will lay up treasure for ourselves in heaven; when we do not, we will try to get what we can get in this life. When God becomes the supreme treasure of our hearts, the thing we desire above all, we see the rest of life clearly, our lives are full of light, and we will spend our time and energy pursuing the things of eternity!<\/p>\n\n\n\n