A lasting reward
Matthew 6:19-23

What do you want -- really want -- out of life? Beware! Like the legendary king Midas you may get what you most desire. Jesus warns us in Matthew 6 & 7 that if we set our hearts on fleeting, transitory rewards, then that's all the reward we will get. And so He calls us to set our hearts on that which will last -- to live in such a way as to win a lasting reward. What is the reward Jesus is talking about here? What is the treasure we are storing up? It is God himself. To store up treasures in heaven means to pursue God above all else.

1. To pursue God above piety (6:1-18)

2. To pursue God above prosperity (6:19-34)

3. To pursue God above perfection (7:1-5)


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There are some awards that you probably don't want to aim for. For example: There's a fairly new award that has gotten a fair amount of attention recently. It is sort of the opposite of a Nobel Prize. The Nobel Prize is for people who are very smart and make great and lasting contributions to humanity. This award is for people who are -- shall we say -- not quite so smart and whose main contribution to humanity is to give everyone else something to laugh about. The award is called the Darwin award.

Most Darwin award winners are no longer with us -- they have removed themselves from the gene pool -- that explains the name. And some of their stories are really more tragic than funny. But a number of Darwin award winners have actually survived. For instance, the two friends who wanted to go ice fishing, but were in too much of a hurry to cut a whole in the ice so they decided to use a stick of dynamite. They also brought along their dog -- whose name, incidentally, was Fetch. One of them lit a stick of dynamite and tossed it out on the ice. Anyway Fetch lived up to his name. They did survive -- I'm not sure how.

Another Darwin Award winner was a Los Angeles man who always wanted to fly. Let me read this one to you:

This is the story of Larry Walters -- affectionately known as lawnchair Larry

Walter's boyhood dream was to fly. When he graduated from high school, he joined the Air Force hoping to become a pilot. Poor eyesight disqualified him. After discharge, he had to satisfy himself with watching jets fly over his backyard until he took matters into his own hands. He bought 42 six foot diameter weather balloons from a local army surplus store, tied them to a Sear's Best Lawn chair and pumped them full of helium. He also took along a large bottle of soda, some snacks, a parachute and a portable CB radio -- oh, and a BB gun to shoot the balloons. 6 friends untethered the craft (which he had fondly dubbed "Inspiration I") and Larry was airborne.

To the surprise of everyone, including Larry, the balloon soared up to 16,000 feet ,-- 3 miles up -- and drifted into LAX airspace where it was spotted by incredulous TWA and Delta pilots.

Larry initially claimed that he had only intended to rise to about 100 feet, but that his tethers broke. Later he admitted that he had hoped to fly over Nevada to watch the Space shuttle land. But he lost his nerve when he actually got airborne. His freezing fingers caused him to accidentally drop his radio and his gun overboard. The chair drifted downward, loosely controlled as he jettisioned the gallon jugs of water attached to the sides of the chair as ballast.

As he neared the ground he spotted power lines. "That's when I got really excited. I thought I was going to get toasted so I tossed as much as I could spare off of the Inspiration" he said. "Those wires can really fry you." The balloons fortunately draped themselves across the wires and left Larry dangling comfortably in his chair about 5 feet from the ground. He finished what was left of his soda and jumped back to earth. The crash landing knocked out power in the Long Beach area for 20 minutes.

Larry stated, "By the grace of God, I have fulfilled my dream, and if I hadn't done it, I would have ended up in the funny farm. But I wouldn't do this again for anything. Now I'm staying on the ground."

Walters was rewarded for his trouble: He earned the Darwin Award, the top prize from the Bonehead Club of Dallas, the altitude record for gas-filled clustered balloons, international admiration and a fine of $1500 from the FAA. He also appeared on "The Tonight Show" and was flown to New York to be on "Late Night With David Letterman."

As I said, some rewards are just not worth going for.

Now our passage today is not exactly about Darwin awards -- But it is about rewards -- and it is about rewards that are worth pursuing and rewards that are not. Let's read part of the passage.

Matthew 6:19-21

These verses summarize the main point that runs through the whole of chapters 6 and 7 of Matthew: There are things worth living for, and there are things not worth living for. And Jesus calls us to set our hearts on that which will last -- to live in such a way as to win a lasting reward.

So what is this reward? And how do we get it? In other words, what does it mean to "store up treasures in heaven?"

Well the obvious answer would seem to be that it means to do good things -- do the kinds of things that God is likely to approve of. Its sort of like God is a kindly father -- and everytime we do something that pleases him, he gives us a reward. It makes sense -- when I was a good boy in school I got rewards, when I was a good boy at home my parents rewarded me, and if I'm a good boy for God, then surely he'll do the same.

So let's play an imagination game. Just for fun. Let's imagine you get a balloon for every good thing you do.

So your left with this big beautiful handful of balloons. And you hold them up high so that everyone can see your reward.

Then Jesus comes into the room, and you run up to him and say, "Lord" look at all these balloons. Look at all the things I did for you. Pop. Why I singlehandedly kept Stony Brook Church going for 5 years -- pop, pop, pop. I fasted. pop. I prayed. I gave to missions. pop. I cared for poor people. Pop. And your left with nothing but a handful of dangling, limp, shredded balloon.

If you think I'm making this up, look at 7:22: Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?" Then I will tell them plainly, "I never knew you. Away from me you evildoers!

So what became of your reward? Doesn't seem fair, does it. You worked so hard to do all those things. What went wrong?

What went wrong is this: You lost sight of the purpose of all of the things you were doing. You settled for impressive looking balloons and passed up the real reward.

In Matthew 6, Jesus spends the first 18 verses telling us that we can either have a reward from people, or a reward from God, but not both. If we're rewarded by the praise of men for good things that we do, then we forfeit God's reward.

He starts by stating this as a general principle:

6:1 Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your father in heaven.

Then he illustrates with three examples -- giving to charity (1-4), praying (5-14) and fasting (16-18) -- and each time he says exactly the same thing:

Don't make a big show of doing these things -- when you give money don't let anyone know, when you pray, don't do it loudly and publicly, when you fast, don't put on a long face and make a big deal of it --

rather, do these things secretly "Then your father, who sees what is done in secret will reward you."

I puzzled over this for a while. Why should these rewards be mutually exclusive? Aren't these things good in themselves? Isn't it good to pray? Isn't it good to fast, and to give to charity? So is God just being a scrooge: "well, you already got paid, so don't expect anything from me!" And why wouldn't God want people to see me praying and fasting -- be a good example to them all.

I think the solution hinges on understanding the reward. For certain things the proper reward is sort of built in. Marriage, for instance. The proper reward of marriage is the joy that comes from love and commitment between a man and a woman. That's why marrying for money is such a bad idea -- you're likely to miss out on the real joy -- the real rewards of marriage.

What is the proper reward of prayer? The proper reward of prayer is relationship with God. You can pray with many other purposes in mind -- to impress people, to get lunch started, to try to manipulate God -- but you will not get true reward of prayer, because you will not really be talking with God. Imagine this: I'm sitting in my office, and I'm holding the phone. You come in and you hear me talking to Carol -- telling her how much I miss her, how I long to be with her, how wonderful it is to be together. I give a sigh , say I love you and hang-up. But let's say its all a sham -- there was no one at the other end of the line -- I was listening to my own voice on voicemail . You will probably say, now isn't that nice, our pastor has such a loving relationship with his wife. You are impressed, and I have received my reward in full --I've fooled you into thinking I'm a great husband. But what I have not received is the much greater reward that I could have had if I had really been communicating with Carol when I said those things -- a closer, deeper relationship with my Carol. I have traded away real communication with my wife for your admiration.

Or let's take fasting as an example. Fasting can be a means to many different goals. You might fast to lose weight, or to make a political statement, or just because it seems the thing to do. Or you can fast with the purpose of developing a deeper hunger for God and thus growing closer to him. What Jesus says here is that these different goals are mutually exclusive. You cannot fast to lose weight or to make a political statement and somehow hope to receive the reward of a closer relationship with God along with it. Why? Because if you're fasting to lose weight your focus will not be on God, but on yourself. And if you're fasting for a political cause, your focus will be on that political cause, not on God. You can't focus your vision in two directions at once. If you looking out the window over there, you cannot be also looking at the cross.

It's not that fasting for Oxfam -- or fasting to lose weight would be wrong. It's just that your reward will match your motive. You fast to lose weight -- that's what you'll get. You fast to impress others with your spirituality, you may very well earn their admiration. You go on a hunger strike, you may achieve your demands. AND if you fast to find God, you will certainly find him.



1.


To store up treasures in heaven means to pursue God above piety. To pursue God as the sole object of our acts of devotion.

Why is this so important -- why does Jesus use three different examples, making the point three times over. And why can't we double dip here?

2. To store up treasures in heaven means to pursue God above prosperity. If you are living for money -- living for the American dream -- you may very well get money, but you will certainly not find God.

3. To store up treasures in heaven means to pursue God above perfection. In your attitude toward other people -- that is, in your relationships.