Our scripture reading for this morning comes from Matthew 6, 19 to 24. These verses come out of the Sermon on the Mount recorded for us in Matthew 5 to 7. In this sermon, Jesus has been explaining to his listeners the importance of having a genuine relationship with God, a relationship with God that is not for show, but is the direct result of a heart change by God. When God performs that heart change, a person's desires are redirected from himself towards God. One of the key indicators of this change is displayed in the focus of a person's life. As Jesus will explain, a person's interaction with money and possession are a big indicator of where their heart is. And please follow along as I read Matthew 6, 19 to 24 from the NASB Bible. 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 and 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. A man and his wife, many years ago, once pulled into a gas station to refuel their car. And you can tell it was many years ago because a service attendant came out and began to wash the windshield. After the service attendant finished washing the windshield, the driver said, wash it again. It's still dirty. So the service attendant obliged and began to scrub it again, looking closely to see if he hadn't missed any bugs or any spots. And when he finished the second time, the driver was angry and said, can't you wash a windshield? It's still dirty. Clean it again. The attendant didn't know what to do, so he began to scrub it as hard as he could, looking, and he couldn't find anything. At this point, the driver was furious. He said, you are the worst windshield washer that I've ever seen. I'm going to talk to your manager and make sure you never work here a day in your life. At which point, his wife reached over, pulled off his glasses, wiped them with a tissue, put them back on his face, and the driver slumped in his seat with embarrassment as he observed a spotless windshield. Figuratively speaking, you and I can be just like that driver. We can become so critical of everyone around us that we do not take the time to stop and ask God to search our hearts. You and I need God's help to enable us to see the dirt that needs to be removed from our glasses, so to speak. And so as we look at these verses that Brother Jake just read for us from Matthew chapter 6, I pray that each one of us will ask the Lord to search our own hearts. Because in these verses, Jesus is challenging us to make some serious decisions. And it's my prayer that each one of us will make these decisions Jesus is calling us to make in these six verses. The title for this morning's sermon, as you can see on the screen behind me or in your notes, is The Decisions of a Godly Father. But understand, this message is for everyone. When Jesus preached this message, he wasn't speaking just to fathers. He was speaking to everyone. And so it's for everyone this morning. But we are going to be speaking directly to fathers as well for two reasons. First, it's Father's Day. And so as an honor of you as a father, we're going to be speaking directly to you a day that we set aside. Father's Day is a day that we set aside to honor you, to thank you for the work that you are doing as a father, but also to challenge you to keep up the good work. That's the first reason we're going to be speaking directly to fathers this morning. But number two, I've titled it Decisions of a Godly Father because as fathers, the buck stops with us. God has designed husbands and fathers to be held accountable to God for the direction that the family goes and what the family does. You see, this is a high and holy responsibility, a responsibility that is easy to shrink back from for many different reasons. whether it be fear, laziness, feelings of incompetence, inability, unsure of how to proceed, and many other reasons. And it can be easy in the Christian home for the wife to step up and take the lead. Sometimes the wife is indeed more capable, skilled, and more eager, and so it can be easy for the husband to allow her to do his job for him. But wives, you must stop. Husbands, you must pick up the mantle, if you will. You must carry it forward with purpose and determination. Why? Because God has called you to this role. You have been ordained by God. And the cool thing is, if God has ordained you to this role, he promises to equip you, to empower you, to enable you, to strengthen you, to carry out this role as you depend on him. So for both of those reasons, number one, it's Father's Day, and number two, God has appointed you as fathers to carry this important role. We're going to be speaking directly to fathers. But everyone else, please listen in. These words are for you as well. From the youngest among us to the oldest, all of us need to heed these words, need to make the decisions that Jesus is calling us to make this morning. As Jesus continues to teach those who are gathered on that mountainside by the Sea of Galilee, he is, in these verses, going to present three major decisions that all of us, and especially fathers, must make. The direction we choose to go with these decisions is going to determine the outcome of our life. It's going to determine if we're going to be serving God or serving ourself, if we're going to be godly or if we're going to be worldly. And so the question for each one of us this morning is which way will we choose to go? What will we decide to do? Three decisions. The first decision we must make is we must make the decision to invest wisely. Now some of you pay financial advisors to help or guide you in investing your money. It's possible you may subscribe to magazines or get an email update every once in a while with the latest principles of investing. And you understand the importance of investing your money wisely so that you don't lose it. If you will, Jesus is the ultimate investment advisor. And his advice and direction is free. You don't have to pay for it, but it's not always very easy to follow. In verses 19 through 21, Jesus lays out three principles that we must keep in mind if we're going to invest wisely. Now when Jesus is talking about investing, he's not just talking about money. Money is definitely included, but he's also talking about time and energy as well. These principles that Jesus is going to present top any other principle that any other financial advisor has ever or will ever give you. And so as we look at these, we see that in order to invest wisely, Jesus says first, we must avoid stockpiling material treasures. Now this is quite the opposite of the advice that your financial consultant is going to give you, isn't it? But hang with me. Let me explain what Jesus is saying here and what Jesus is not saying. First, what is Jesus saying? As again, the text says, verse 19, Understand first that this is not an option, nor is it a suggestion. It is a command. The verb is an imperative. It's a command. Jesus is commanding us to avoid stockpiling material treasures. Now this is a hard message, especially for us as Americans to hear. We live in America, the land of the free, the home of the brave. We're all pursuing the American dream, right? The American dream to make as much money as possible, to attain and possess as many possessions as possible, to enjoy them as much as possible for as long as possible, right? That's the American dream. But what Jesus is saying here is completely counterculture. You see, He's telling us not to stockpile, not to store up treasures on earth. Why? Well, as he says here, it's because they don't last. They can deteriorate or be stolen. Notice he mentions the first idea of a moth. You see, in Jesus' day, one of the forms of investment that they made was an expensive cloth. And that cloth was often made out of wool, and I'm told that moths like to eat wool. And so if you didn't protect your cloth, the moths would destroy it, and there went your entire investment. Other people would take their investment, whatever it was, maybe it was gold or silver, and they would try to bury it. And of course, if you're burying it in damp soil, it's going to rust. Or if you're not going to bury it, you might try to hide it. But if you don't hide it well enough, someone's going to find it and steal it. See, Jesus is going through all these different ideas, whether it's moth, rust, or theft, to show the transience, the emptiness, the instability of storing up treasures on earth. And the same is true for us today. Even though our monetary investments might have a little bit more safety attached to them, if we put them in a bank that is FDIC and all that kind of thing, the fact of the matter is, they're still not completely safe. We understand, at least here in America, the stock market could crash, the Federal Reserve could implode, and before we know it, all of our cash would be worthless. It's happened before in history. You've heard about the time in Germany in the 1920s when there was talk about having to bring a whole wheelbarrow full of cash to buy a loaf of bread. It's happened before. It's happening right now in Venezuela. And it could happen here as well. The point is our monetary investments are not always completely safe. And that's one of the reasons Jesus says to stop, avoid stockpiling those material treasures. Now that's what Jesus is saying, but before we go on, let's make sure we understand what Jesus is not saying, what he's not implying in this verse. Jesus is not saying, he's not implying that we should never have a savings account, nor is he implying that we should never have a Roth IRA, a traditional IRA, or 401k, whatever it may be. Those things can have their place, okay, and they can enable us to be a good steward of the resources that God has entrusted to us. But as we're going to see in a little bit, the issue is not how much money we have saved away or how many toys you have in your garage or your shed. The issue is how tightly your heart is connected to those items. Are you devoting your time, energy, and money solely into funding your retirement fund or into your entertainment purposes? You see, that's the direction that Jesus is going with all of this. When Jesus instructs us to avoid stockpiling material treasures, he's instructing us to make sure that our heart, our drive, our passion is not solely focused on increasing our bank account, expanding our financial portfolio, or seeing how many possessions we can get our hands on. You see, if we're going to invest wisely, we must begin by avoiding stockpiling material treasures. And that's a hard issue. The godly father must avoid stockpiling material treasures. But the second principle that Jesus presents in verse 20 is we need to actively stockpile eternal treasures. You'll see verse 20 is directly contrasted with what Jesus said in verse 19. Once again, Jesus is using the imperative. It's a command. He commands us to actively stockpile eternal treasures. It's not an option. This is what God wants his children to do. Principle number two, actively stockpile eternal treasures. The question then becomes, what are those eternal treasures and how do we store them up? Well, we see here in verse 20 that these treasures are out of this world, right? Moth can't touch them. Rust cannot attack them. No one can steal these treasures. The text says they're treasures in heaven. And so we understand that these treasures are rewards that we will receive one day in heaven. I think most of us have heard the fact that you never see a hearse pulling a U-Haul, right? The only thing that you take to heaven with you is people. Therefore, one way to actively stockpile eternal treasures is to invest your time, money, resources, and energy into people and fathers. Your first and primary focus should be your wife and children. They should take the majority of your time outside of work. You see, as fathers, we need to be investing into the lives of our wife and children. Quality time is important, but so too is quantity time. Now I understand life is busy and there's so many things that are pulling at us from all different directions. But if we truly want to invest our lives wisely, we must, as fathers, make our families a priority. And so involve your kids with the activities that you're doing, projects around the house. Yeah, it might not be as convenient to have your little kids help you. It's probably gonna take you a lot longer to get a project done. But you're only gonna have your kids for so long, and you're always gonna have projects around the house. You'll never regret the time that you spend with your children, so invest in them. If you're not a father this morning, understand you still have the opportunity, you still have the responsibility to invest in people around you. Maybe it's a member of your immediate family. Maybe it's a close friend or acquaintance. Maybe it's the child that lives next door that doesn't really have a godly influence in their life. You have the responsibility to invest in them. The question is, are you willing to invest your time, energy, and resources into people instead of things? Now, as we consider this principle of actively stockpiling eternal treasures, there's another avenue that we must think through, especially as Americans, and that is, how are we actually investing our money? Now, when I say that, you might immediately start to think about the company or stock or mutual fund that you are going to invest in that's going to provide the greatest return. But I'm here to tell you that the very best investment that you can make, which is better than any of those kind of investments, is to invest your money in the ministry of Pastor Josh and Autumn, in the ministry of Craig and Sarah Noyes. When financial guru Dave Ramsey gives advice and instructs people about what kind of mutual funds to invest in, he always tells people to look for a mutual fund that over many years historically makes at least 12%. In the financial investing world, 12% return is a good measure of investing. But I'm here to tell you that that's nothing compared to the returns that you will get if you invest in the ministry of Pastor Josh and Autumn. First off, the returns are going to be out of this world, but you know what Jesus says in Matthew chapter 19 and verse 29? Someone argued that the returns on the investments you make in a ministry like that are 10,000%. That makes that 12% that Dave Ramsey talks about look as if it's nothing. 10,000%. Jesus says in Matthew 19.29 that we will receive 100 times as much. I can regret you'll never investing in their ministry. Now this is going to require a mindset change, right? When we think about investing money, we don't think this way. We always want to see the returns on our investment as dollar figures on that summary sheet that we get in the mail or in the email. And so this requires a mindset change. Now it's true, if we're going to invest in this kind of ministry, we're not always going to see the total returns here on this earth. Most of it we're going to only have to wait to see until we get to heaven. And so if we're going to do this, it's going to require some faith to actively stockpile eternal treasures in this way. As I think about this idea of investing in ministry and investing our money in that way, I'm reminded of the song by Ray Boltz. I'm guessing many of you have heard that song over the years entitled, Thank You. He wrote that song talking about the man who gets to heaven who had this mindset of actively stockpiling eternal treasures. And the song talks about what it might be like when he gets to heaven and meets the people that his money impacted. One verse goes like this. Then another man stood before you and said, remember the time? A missionary came to your church. His pictures made you cry. You didn't have much money, but you gave it anyway. Jesus took the gift you gave, and that's why I'm here today." The chorus says, thank you for giving to the Lord. I am the life that was changed. Thank you for giving to the Lord. I am so glad you gave. The final verse, one by one they came as far as the eye could see, each one somehow touched by your generosity. Little things you have done, sacrifices made, unnoticed on the earth, heaven now proclaims. And so the question for us this morning is, are you willing to actively stockpile eternal treasures in contrast to earthly ones? This passage is not for the faint of heart. These are some serious commitments that Jesus is calling us to make. In fact, he goes on to say in verse 21, You see, if we're going to invest wisely, we must follow this fourth principle that Jesus gives to accurately gauge your heart. You see, the amount of time, energy, and resources that we're putting into our treasures are a direct reflection of where our heart is. If the majority of our time and resources is being invested in material treasures, that's where your heart is. Your heart is going to be fixated, focused on earthly treasures, which is a dangerous place to be. You see, as believers, God has called us to have our heart focus on Him, on His glory, His rewards, on His desires. And so if that is where our focus is, we're going to be stockpiling eternal treasures as opposed to earthly treasures. Preachers used to say, give me your pocketbook and your checkbook and I'll be able to determine where your heart is. Nowadays, we should probably say, give me your cell phone and give me your credit card statement and I'll be able to tell where your heart is. George W. Truitt was the pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas for many, many years. And he recounts that one day he was invited to the home of a very wealthy man there in Texas. After they enjoyed a wonderful meal together, the host invited Dr. Truitt outside to a place where they could see for miles. And as they're standing there, the man directed Dr. Truitt's attention to the south and said, See all those oil wells out there? 25 years ago, I had nothing. Now they're all mine. Now look over here to the north. You see all those cattle? They're all mine. And here to the east, you see those rolling fields of grain? It's all mine. And there in the west, that beautiful forest? That's all mine as well. At which point the man paused, expecting Dr. Truitt to congratulate him on his success and how God had blessed him. But instead, Dr. Truitt put one hand on the man's shoulder, pointed heavenward and said, and how much do you have in that direction? And the man bowed his head and said, I've never really thought of that before. You see, today is a day for self-examination. God wants you to gauge your heart. Where is your treasure? Is it on earth or is it in heaven? Where are you investing your time, energy, and resources? Brothers and sisters, this is serious business. It's not the time to joke around or make excuses. This is serious. We read in Proverbs 4, 23, You see, God is most concerned about your heart. He wants to make sure that your heart is in the right place. He wants your heart to be seeking after Him. And the way that he gives us this morning to gauge that heart, our hearts, is to assess our treasures. And so will you take the time to do that today? Will you seriously consider where your heart is? Verse 21 again, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. As we accurately gauge our hearts, we then must be willing to make changes, the changes necessary, make the adjustments necessary so that we can be stockpiling eternal treasures, so that we can be investing wisely. But the decision is yours. Will you make the decision to invest wisely? Now in God's Word, light is a good thing, right? We read in 1 John 1.5, God is light. And in him there is no darkness at all. And so Jesus is using this object lesson of the physical eye to explain that when our physical eye is clear and working properly, we're able to see light. And in the same way, when our spiritual eye is working correctly, we're able to see truth. We're able to see the light of who God is and what he is calling us to do. In other words, when our spiritual eye is clear, we're able to focus and understand reality, the reality of eternity. However, when our spiritual eye is bad, when it is affected by worldliness, greed, selfishness, or laziness, we have a skewed image of reality. We think that we'll be able to attain happiness, fulfillment from stuff and entertainment. We think that the only purpose of our life here on this earth is to have fun and accumulate stuff to play with. But our perception is all wrong. It's messed up. It's skewed. Now, in the physical realm, it's possible to trick even a good eye to misjudge reality. Optical illusions are famous for this. You may have seen this one before. And when you look at this, the question is, are those horizontal lines straight or are they crooked? It's really hard to tell, right? There's a science behind why our brains have a hard time interpreting this, but those lines actually are straight. I'll move that yellow line down there so that you can see each line is indeed completely straight. Even though we perceive that those lines are crooked, the fact of the matter is they are straight. If you will, this optical illusion makes our eye bad. Our eyes are not able to interpret reality correctly. Our eyes have been tricked. And the same thing can happen in a person's life as well. They can trick themselves into believing that something is reality when it is really not. And that's exactly where Jesus goes there at the end of verse 23 as he says, You see, the idea is the person thinks that they are seeing light. If you will, they think that they are seeing crooked lines and are convinced those crooked lines are reality. That's what they actually are. But if the person thinks they're perceiving reality correctly, but really are not, they're deceiving themselves. And how great is their darkness, the darkness that they actually have. You see, with this object lesson, Jesus is explaining that it's possible for a person to deceive themselves into thinking that they are a believer, into thinking that they are a Christian. They may think that they have light, But their heart is actually caught up with everything in the world. And that supposed light that they have inside them is actually darkness. And that darkness is very great. And that's a very scary place to be. That's why all of us must examine our hearts. That's why Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 13, 5, test yourself to make sure that you are in the faith. And if you find that you are not, we need to humble ourselves, admit our sin, our desperate need for God. We must turn to him in faith, as we see in Romans 10, 9, confess with our mouth, Jesus is Lord and believe in our heart that God raised him from the dead so that we can be saved. As believers, God wants all of us to sharpen our focus. He wants us to have a clear, a sincere eye. Eyes that are able to focus on what is truly reality. The reality of God. The reality of eternity. You see, our lives here on this earth are so short compared to all of eternity. how terribly sad it will be if we live extravagantly here on this earth, focus on ourselves and all of our stuff, and then have to spend eternity either one, in hell, or two, in heaven, with everything burned up. Keep your finger here in Matthew chapter six, and let's look at this in 1 Corinthians chapter three, where Paul talks about this idea. 1 Corinthians chapter 3, Paul's explaining using the illustration of a building, comparing that to our lives. 1 Corinthians chapter 3, he starts in verse 10 saying, according to the grace of God, which was given to me like a wise master builder, I laid a foundation, and another is building on it. But each man must be careful how he builds on it. For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. And so we're talking about believers here. Believers, people who have put their faith and trust in Christ, who have the foundation of Jesus Christ. Now verse 12. And the fire itself will test the quality of each man's work. If any man's work which he has built on remains, he will receive a reward. That's the work that we build when we're stockpiling eternal treasures. But, verse 15, if any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss. But he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire. You see, it's possible for a Christian to get to heaven and to have no eternal reward, saved yet as through fire. May that not be true of any of us here this morning. You see, God wants us to have our focus, our eyes on Him. He wants us to understand the reality of eternity. He longs for us to live with our eyes focused on eternity right now. And so the question is, where is your focus? Are you focused on God? Are you living in the light? Or are you focused on yourself? Is your perception of reality skewed? You see, God is calling each one of us to make the decision to sharpen our focus on Him and on eternity. In verses 19 to 23, Jesus is grabbing our attention for what he's going to go on to say in verse 24. In verse 24, we see the third decision that Jesus is calling us to make. We must decide who we will serve. Verse 24, the text says, No one can serve two masters, for 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 God and wealth. You see, this final verse is really tying it all together. Jesus is explaining that we cannot serve God and money. We're going to hate the one and love the other. We're going to despise the one or be devoted to the other. Now even if we are not consciously hating one, the fact of the matter is you and I were created to only have one overall purpose, one overall drive. You see, either we're going to be serving ourselves and using everyone and everything around us to serve us, to please us, or We're going to be serving God. We're going to be treating everyone and everyone around us, everything around us, as He desires as we seek to serve Him. It's impossible to be solely focused on storing up treasures on earth and at the same time be focused on storing up treasures in heaven. It cannot happen. We are not chameleons. Chameleons can use both of their eyes to focus on two different things at once, but we can't. We can only have one focus. We must make the decision, who will we serve? And in reality, there's really only two possible answers to that question, who are you going to serve? Either we're going to serve God, Or we're going to serve ourselves, which most of the time is manifested by a fixation on money, gaining possessions, pleasures, and entertainment. Now remember, money is not bad. It's the love of money that's wrong. Possessions are not bad, but if they have your heart, you're in great trouble. There's nothing wrong with being entertained and having fun. But if that's all you live for, you're choosing to serve yourself. You see, God is calling each one of us this morning to make a decision. Will we serve God or we serve ourselves? We cannot serve both. You cannot serve Ford and Chevy. You cannot play for the Cleveland Indians and the New York Yankees at the same time. It's either one or the other. And it's the same way, either we're gonna serve God or we're gonna serve money and ourselves. Who will you decide to serve? Joshua, in Joshua chapter 24, verse 15, said, choose for yourself today whom you will serve. Whether the gods which your father served, which were beyond the river, or the gods of the Amorite in whose land you are living, in other words, serving ourselves. But Joshua says, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. I challenge each one of us as fathers to make that commitment today.