The Sermon on the Mount talks about what it will look like if we take the essential message of Jesus Christ and live it out. Jesus tells us three things we can draw out about money and possessions. He tells us how money exercises power over us, why money exercises power over us, and how we can break the power.

How money exercises power over us: by blinding us to greed.

One of the curious things for anybody trying to understand the passage is this illustration about the eye. It says, "The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness." Now what that means is simple. There's light in this room, and if your eye works, if it takes the light in, you will by the light be able to move your body through the room. You'll see where the aisle is, and you won't stumble or fall. All this is saying is if your eye isn't working, even though there's light around the rest of your body, your whole body is, in a sense, in the darkness. If your eye is not working, there's a sense in which no other part of your body can see or take the light in. So if your eye is not working, your whole body is in darkness, whether or not the whole room is flooded with light.

In Luke 11 Jesus uses the same illustration, that the eye is the lamp of the body, that if your eye is dark, your whole body is dark. He also talks about money again. It's connected. When you get into Luke 12, after he talks about the eye and the lamp, he says: so watch out for greed.

He's saying that materialism materialism is an inordinate desire or "dependence on money and material thingshas the peculiar effect of blinding you spiritually, of distorting the way you see things. It has power over the way you see everything. Let me give you some examples. First of all, materialism has the power to blind you to materialism.

Illustration : Some years ago, my wife, Kathy, noticed I was doing a series of monthly morning breakfasts on the seven deadly sins. The seven deadly sins include lust, pride, envy, anger, and so forth. And, of course, one of the seven deadly sins is greed. Kathy asked, "Are they advertising these things?" I said, "Yes, they're advertising." She said, "So they'll know the month you're speaking on greed?" I said, "Right." She said, "Watch, the attendance is going to drop. They're not going to come out to hear about greed." And she was right. It was the least attended of all of them.

Why? It's not that they were hostile. It's not that people said, "That's a terrible idea. I don't want to hear about greed." No. Everybody was just so sure it wasn't true of them.

Greed is different than other sins. This is why Jesus says this is an eye sin. This darkens your eye spiritually. Jesus did not say to anybody, "Watch out, you might be committing adultery." If you're committing adultery; you know you're committing adultery. You don't say, "Oh, you're not my wife!" It doesn't happen. But Jesus has to say, Watch out, you might be greedy. Greed hides itself. It blinds you in a way that adultery doesn't. Over the years as a pastor, I've had people come in to talk to me about sins, but I don't remember anybody coming to me to confess the sin of greed.

Jesus is saying: You don't ask. You don't consider the possibility that you're greedy. You don't think you are. You say, "Me? Greedy?" You think of rich people. You think of people that spend tons. Most of you even have a relative who's more extravagant with money than you are. That's all it takes. All you have to do is know somebody who's really greedy, and you won't think you're greedy. You wouldn't even consider the possibility that you're materialistic.

If you say, "This is not a problem of mine," that's a very bad sign. A symptom of this sin is thinking, I'm sure it's not true of me. Jesus is saying watch out. This is a sin of the eye. It darkens your eye.

For example, materialism has the power to get you to choose a jobnot one that you love, not one that you're good at, not one that helps people, but one that makes you money. You do it because it will get you to a certain status in life. You choose the job on the basis of that. For five to ten years the adrenaline can keep you going, but after a while you find yourself empty inside. Why did you choose the job? Your eye was dark.

Not only can materialism blind you as you choose your job, but it can blind you in the conduct of your job. For example, many companies are making money, but they're hurting neighborhoods. They're hurting towns. They're hurting people. There are all sorts of people in the company, and what are they doing? Are they saying, "Aha! In order to make money I will ruin the environment of that little town"? No, they're not doing that. They're not asking. They don't want to go there. They don't want to ask hard questions: Are the things my company is doing helping people or hurting people? Is it helping the town or is it hurting the town? Is it helping the neighborhood or is it hurting? You don't want to know. That's the blindness. That's what Jesus is talking about. Greed doesn't go, "Aha! I am gouging the poor!" No, but are you asking whether your company is? You need to ask that.

Materialism also keeps you from asking hard questions about your lifestyle. One of the problems is the kinds of people you come into contact with. Sometimes your friends are making ten times the money you are. You might have a good job, but here's a person making ten times, fifty times what you're making. Don't forget, the person you think is rich is hanging out with people who make ten times more than they do every year. Therefore, nobody ever feels rich.

You don't ask these questions: Do I really need to spend as much money on this? Do I need to be putting this much money into my apartment? Do I need to be spending this much money on clothes? Immediately you think of people who spend much more, so you don't ask the questions. You don't say: Aren't there ways I could be giving more of my money to the church, to the poor, to my friends, to the neighbors? Aren't there ways I could be more radically generous if I made this and that and that change? You don't want to ask. You don't want to think.

Illustration : In 1635, a guy named Robert Cain was a member of the First Congregational Church of Boston. He was doing well as a businessman, but his elders disciplined him for the sin of greed. Now how did they do that? It was because he was selling his product at a six percent profit, and the church had decided three or four years before that Christians were only allowed to sell their wares at a four percent profit. So when they found out he was doing six percent, they disciplined him for the sin of greed.

Some of you are saying, "Where does it say in the Bible four percent? What are you talking about?" These church elders knew that when you're committing adultery you know you're committing adultery, but when you're being greedy you ' never know. So they sat down as Christians and said: Jesus talks about money all the time. He's constantly saying watch out for greed. He's always saying give your money away. He's always saying don't spend all your money on yourself. So some business practices must be greedy. Some lifestyles have to be greedy. How are we going to know? As a Christian community, let's sit down and decide, at our time in our place in this spot, what is a greedy lifestyle and what are greedy business practices.

So by consensus they decided on some rules and decided to hold each other accountable. It was consensual. And of course Robert Cain knew about it, but he tried to move past it.

I am not saying by any means that today, in our economy, you could come up with a nice, simple rule of thumb. But here's the point: Who are you accountable to? What Christians have you gotten together with and said, "Let's talk about how we're spending our money on each other, on ourselveshow much we're giving away, how much we're keeping, what we're doing"? You have to talk about this with somebody. You've got to have some standards. And you can't trust yourself. That's the principle. You cannot trust yourself to decide this.

I know what you're thinking. I know what I'm thinking. We don't want to think about this. When I spend money, I don't want to sit down and think, Did I really have to do that? I don't want to talk to other people about it. 1 don't even want to talk to myself about it. I just want to do it.

That's Jesus' whole point about greed. Money has the power to keep you from asking questions about how you spend your money and how you make your money.

Is there anybody in this room who dares to say, "I am doing fine when it comes to material things. I couldn't give any more away, I couldn't live any more simply, I couldn't be any more generous with my money. I'm pretty generous"? The rest of the world knows better. There are so many things you could be doing in this world if you didn't think you had to have that gadget. It's astounding that we live in the place we live, in the time we live, and we won't think about the possibility that we're greedy. That shows the power of greed. It shows the power of money.

Why money exercises power over us: it gives us significance and security.

Why is it that money has this power? The answer is in the famous verse where Jesus says, "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." He means that the place where your heart rests is revealed by money. So what it means is, for many of us, money is a way of getting significance. One of the reasons why we need so much money, why we spend it on ourselves and don't give it away like we should, is because money is our significance. The fact that we're able to live in a certain place, the fact that we're able to eat at certain places, the fact that we're in certain social circles, the fact that we can dress in a certain way makes us feel we're important.

And we don't just look at other people who are below us economically and say, "You're below me economically." We say, "You're below me." You don't have to be very well off. Middle class people in general feel superior to the poor. We give money and we're sorry for the poor and we pity the poor, but we feel superior to them. And there's no good reason to. If you started at the same place they did, with the same parents they had, with the same situation they had, do you think you'd be better? When we feel like we're better economically than somebody else, we feel like we're better. When we're higher caliber , we feel like we're higher caliber. It's automatic.

But other people make money their security. Some people use money for approval; other people use money for control. Some people use money in order to say, "I feel important," but other people say, "I need money so I'm safe."

I'm asking this question: If you're not giving your money away in proportions, if you find it difficult, if you're not so radically generous that the worlds amazed at the Christiansand most of us are notwhy? One answer is that money is your significance. The other possibility is money is your security. In other words, you feel, If I have money, then I have control in an uncontrollable world. I have control over my life. If things come along, I'm safe. And Jesus Christ says running after these things cannot add a minute to your life. It's God who is in control of these things. Money is not going to turn you into God.

Illustration: One of my professors, Addison Leitch, knew a couple of young women who became Christians in college. They went back to their parents and said, "We've become Christians, and we want to be missionaries." And each of the parents said, "Now, dear, you had a religious experience. How wonderful. But you need some security. Before you go off to have your missionary experience, which is fine, we want you to have a master's degree. We want you to have taken a job or two so you've gotten your career off the ground. And we want you to have some money in the bank for some security."

The women came back to my professor, Dr. Leitch, and said, "What do we say about that?" Dr. Leach said, "Here's what I would say to your parents. Tell them we're on a little ball of rock spinning through space. It's called earth, and who knows if we're going to run into something. But even if we don't, some day under each one of us is going to open a trap door, and everybody's going to fall off. At the end of your life, a trap door will open up underneath you, and you will fall off the little ball of rock. And underneath will be the everlasting arms or nothing at all. And you think a master's degree is going to give you some security."

That's what Jesus is saying here. He says money seems like it can give you significance. But actually, when you make money, you become an arrogant person that nobody likes, and you think money can give you some security, but the fact is that money can't possibly stop death. It can't stop tragedy. It can't stop broken relationships.

How we can break the power of money over us: by understanding the gospel.

So how do we break the power of money in our lives? Verse 19 says: "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 moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal."

He says: Don't treasure earthly treasures, but treasure heavenly treasure. Everybody, at the center of their soul, has something they treasure. What does it mean to treasure something? It means to look at something, to fill your heart with the beauty and the value of it. And to treasure something is to say, "If I have this, everything is worth it." In other words, everybody's got something. It might be money. It might be career. It might be status. It might be romance. It might be a family. You're looking at it, and it's your treasure.

My favorite fantasy book, Lord of the Rings, is about this special ring. It's beautiful, and whoever owns it calls it "the precious."

That's what Jesus is saying. At the center of everybody's soul, there is "the precious," something you've looked at and said, "This is precious to me. If I have this thing, then it's all worth it." But whatever that is, you are enslaved to it. Once your soul treasures something, you will pay any price for it. You will do anything to get it, because it's the only thing that's worth it.

The Bible says that every treasure but Jesus will insist you die to purchase it. But Jesus himself is the one treasure who died to purchase you. He was the Lord. He had the ultimate status, and he also had the ultimate security. He was the Son of the Father. But when he came to earth, what happened to him on the cross? He was utterly stripped. He lost all of his treasure. Why? He died for something. Now, you only die for that which is your precious. This means Jesus Christ must have looked at us and said, "If I have them, even going to hell will be worth it." Isaiah 53 tells us by prophecy that when he saw the results of his suffering, he was satisfied.

First Peter 2:9 says, "You are a chosen race." He's talking to Christians. "You are a holy nation. You are a royal priesthood. You are Gods purchased possession." That means you are his treasure. You know he treasures you, you know he cares about you. That and that alone will free you from money. It will free you from everything.

Here's one of the ways you know you have spiritual wealth. How do you react to rich people? Many of you resent rich people. You feel disdainful of them. You say, Look at their money. Look at their homes. Look at all this stuff. You feel superior to them, and that shows money still has power over you. If you dislike rich people, if you feel superior to rich people, that shows money has still got power over you. It shows a lack of spiritual wealth in you. It shows a lack of humility. However, if you envy rich people, that also shows money has power over you.

The gospel is: you're more sinful than you ever dared believe; you're more loved than you ever dared hope. The "more sinful" keeps you from feeling superior to rich people; the "more loved" keeps you from feeling inferior to rich people. Therefore, the gospel puts you in a place where you don't care about money anymore. The best way to see that money no longer has any power over you is that you love rich people.

Secondly, the way you can tell money has no more power over you is that you respect poor people, that you look at them and respect them, you expect to learn from them, and you don't look down your nose at them. That's hard. By and large, money still has power over us, because often when we get around poor people, we look down our nose at them.

Jesus lost all of his treasure to make you his treasure. That humbles you. That melts you. That lifts you up. And one of the ways you know money has lost its power over you is that you have no trouble loving rich people. Secondly, you have no trouble loving poor people.

But the third sign money no longer has power over your life is this: You get really generous. Verse 22 says, "The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good..." The word {food has a double meaning in Greek. It also means generous. And a Christian who has been freed from money by finding Jesus as their treasure gets a generous eye. You're always looking for opportunities. You're looking at your friends. You're looking at your neighbors. You're looking at your church. You're looking at the poor. You're looking at your city. You're always looking for ways to give away.

You wonder how much. You have to look at what Jesus did. When Jesus treasured you, he treasured you sacrificially. If I want to respond to Jesus, that means I must not simply live out the cross of Jesus Christ in my relationships; I've also got to live out the cross of Jesus Christ economically. That means you have to give enough money away this year that it sacrifices your lifestyle. If you give money but it doesn't cut into the way you live, if it isn't a sacrifice, if there's no cross in your economic life, if you don't give away enough money so it makes a difference in your lifestyle, then you're not responding to Jesus as he responded to you.

For most people, the tithe is the goal. The Bible says give away ten percent, and that's a good figure to think about in terms of your giving. That's a good way to tell whether the gospel is working in your heart, because if the gospel is working in your heart and you see what Jesus Christ has done for you, ten percent doesn't seem like much. What if Jesus had tithed his blood? We'd still be lost. Jesus went way past the tithe. Ten percent doesn't seem like much. However, for most people it does mean a sacrifice. There will be a cross in the ten percent for most of us.

But increasingly in America, there are people for whom ten percent does not make a dent. And ten percent is not the point. Ten percent is just a rule of thumb. It's a good way to get started, but the cross is the standard. Is there a cross in your economic life?

If Jesus is your treasure, you'll love the rich. If Jesus is your treasure, you'll love the poor. If Jesus is your treasure, you'll be giving your money away joyfully, deliberately, happily.

Illustration : That's the reason the early church was so successful. We have an old letter from Diognetus, who told why the early Christians stunned people. He says, "We share our table with all, but we do not share our bed with all." He said, in other words, pagans are promiscuous with their body but stingy with their money. And Christians are stingy with their body and promiscuous with their money.

A city filled with that kind of person is going to be a healthy city. A neighborhood filled with that kind of person is going to be a healthy neighborhood. There are tremendous public ramifications of the Sermon on the Mount. Let's live it.

Treasure Versus Money was preached 5.2.99.

(c) Timothy Keller

Preaching Today Tape # 230

www.PreachingTodaySermons.com

A resource of Christianity Today International

Timothy Keller is the founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan. He is also the Chairman & Co-Founder of Redeemer City to City, which starts new churches in New York and other global cities, and publishes books and resources for ministry in an urban environment.