Pentecost Week 24 - Treasure & Anxiety

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Scripture Reading

*Explain the context: Today we will read some of Jesus’ famous teachings from the Sermon on the Mount:

Matthew 6:19-21, 6:25-33

Big Idea (For Parents)

Jesus’ care for his earliest disciples proves that we too can generously invest now in God’s Kingdom without anxiety for future needs.

Family Reflection

(Read aloud or summarize)

Some of the focuses of our current church calendar season, Pentecost season, are biblical teaching and the growth of God’s Kingdom. Thus, today we’re learning from some of Jesus’ most famous instructions for life in his kingdom.

Like all of Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, these verses are best understood when we consider Jesus’ original audience. His first hearers were mostly Jewish people living in the historic land of Israel who within about 40 years would experience a terrible judgment of God for their rejection and persecution of Jesus and his Church. Thus, the first-century Jews to whom Jesus spoke had a choice: they could side with the Jesus-rejecting Jewish leaders and continue to lay up their treasures “on the land” of Israel (“on earth” in most English bibles), or they could do what seemed much riskier and invest generously in God’s heavenly people the Church (see Philippians 3:20). After the Roman armies finished destroying Israel in the year AD 70, all the treasure laid up “on the land” would be lost, but treasure invested in God’s heavenly people would endure as the church continued flourishing. For those investing in God’s Kingdom, even physical death meant not loss but rather gain from the God who enriches his people in Christ (Philippians 1:21, 4:19). Further, their hearts would follow their investments. Jesus wanted their hearts on himself, so he told them to invest in his own body, the Church.

This was not an easy instruction, however. In the first century, food and clothing were not guaranteed. By publicly siding with Jesus and generously investing in his people amidst persecution, some truly risked future starvation and nakedness for themselves and their families. “Don’t worry,” Jesus said to them, “Look at the birds of the air….” In the Bible, “the birds of the air” sometimes symbolize the many nations of the earth, that is, “the Gentiles” (see Daniel 4:12, 20-22). Jesus further said, “Consider the lilies of the field….” Again, in the Bible, God’s covenant people Israel are often compared to cultivated crops and plants, making the Gentiles by contrast to be “wild” plants of the field (see, e.g., Romans 11:24). These possible allusions to the Gentiles are strengthened when Jesus soon after reminds his hearers that “the Gentiles seek after all these things.” Jesus’ disciples did not need to anxiously store up provisions for themselves because when they sought first God’s Kingdom, God would providentially ensure that all those provisions would be added to them. And the New Testament shows us just how God did so: through the conversion of the very Gentiles who Jesus said had been seeking after those same provisions! As Jesus’ disciples faithfully invested in his Church and made disciples of the nations, those same nations gave generously from their provisions and thereby met the needs of Jesus’ earliest disciples, especially those most persecuted in the land of Israel. (see, e.g., Acts 11:19-30; 1 Corinthians 16:1-4; 2 Corinthians 8:1-9:15; Romans 15:25-32).

We can apply these principles to ourselves today by recognizing that we too face investment choices. In addition to investment in God’s heavenly people, the Church, Scripture instructs us to provide for our households (1 Timothy 5:8) and to reasonably save for foreseeable needs (Proverbs 6:6–8). As the Lord blesses, our obedience to God in one of these areas should not crowd out our obedience in the others. For example, like Jesus’ first hearers, we may be tempted to try to provide for our own needs by anxiously withholding the generous investments into God’s Kingdom for which he has positioned us, thereby becoming unbalanced. In the face of such a temptation, Jesus calls us to trust that the same God who provided for the early Church under much more difficult circumstances can and will most certainly meet our needs as we place our treasure where Jesus would have it be. That choice requires faith, but God is faithful.

Discussion Questions

(Choose 1-2. Adjust for age.)

1- Why does it often feel safer to keep things than to give them away?

(Hint: The Bible says God ultimately owns everything and gives it to whom he wills. When is it harder to recognize that God, not us, ultimately owns our stuff—when we keep it, or when we give it away?)

2- What are some ways in which your family has invested in God’s Kingdom?

3- What further investments into God’s Kingdom has God positioned you to make going forward?

Practice—Treasure Tracking

Jesus teaches not only that the place of our treasure reveals the place of our hearts, but also that our hearts follow our treasure. In other words, the more we invest in something, the more we value it. Consider some of your family’s greatest expenses/investments. How do those expenses/investments reveal and shape your values?

Thank God for the investments which reflect the values you want to have, and ask God’s forgiveness for any levels of investment that may miss the mark.

Then, prayerfully commit as a family to one further step, no matter how great or small, to invest your treasure where God would have it to be.