God's provision: Matthew 6:19-34 (Graham Cepica)

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Salt + Light Community is a SOMA church plant in the heart of Fort Worth, TX. Here you’ll find teaching and discussions from our gatherings on Sundays.

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Speaker: Good morning.

Good morning.

Super happy to be sharing what
God has put on my heart this week.

Uh, what a rich passage that is.

There's a lot of really good stuff there.

My parents are here today from Lubbock.

Yeah.

Ooh.

So, if you have not met them,
you should go meet them.

There's not that many of you, so.

So I'm gonna start by saying just, uh,
three, three sentences, and I want you to

pay attention to how they make you feel.

Okay?

So number one, in this life, there
are winners and there are losers

Leaders are born, not made.

Okay?

That's kind of two.

Three, history is defined by a select
handful of great men who possess

exceptional intellect or courage or skill
that sets them apart from everybody else,

and that is how history is, is made.

Okay?

So I have been presented with
these types of ideals recently.

W- one thing that all of these things
have in common is that they are pulled

from cultural artifacts over the past 20
some odd years, movies or an article that

I've come across, or a TV show or a book,
and they don't make me feel very good,

to go back to that original question.

Um, but the second thing that they
have in common is that they all ascribe

to a worldview, like a way of seeing
society and culture and people, and

if I ascribe to that worldview, that
affects how I interact with you, and it

also affects how I interact with myself.

But Jesus starts the Sermon on the
Mount directly addressing a very

particular group of people that probably
do not ascribe to that worldview.

I mean, he literally says the poor,
the meek, those who are hungry

and thirsty for righteousness.

And so if I put myself in the shoe,
in the shoes of a Roman soldier who

is hearing Jesus talk, I, I probably
ascribe to that former worldview.

I probably pledge allegiance to Caesar,
who I probably believe is a great man who

is changing history, and I myself am also
a great man or something of that sort.

So whenever Jesus starts to talk about
the poor and the meek and those who are

hungry and thirsty, I probably tune him
out 'cause that's not relevant to me.

But we're six chapters in to the
Sermon on the Mount, and Jesus just

said something that probably makes
that Roman turn his head, and that

thing is money Money, money, money.

Money and anxiety are two
really slippery topics.

I think today money is a little taboo to
talk about how much you take home every

month, like where your investments are,
like what your most recent splurge was.

I had a mentor that was part of this
community group, kind of like our DNA

groups, and they agreed to be really
transparent about their, their finances.

And so every time that anybody in
the group spent over $50, you just

sent a text message to the group.

No, no accountability, no
feedback, no commentary.

You just had to notify, "Hey, I just
dropped 50 bucks on a new T-shirt or a

new pair of shoes," or anything over that.

And whenever I first heard that
and whenever I continue to think

about that, I mean, just like
think about our DNA groups.

Like just, "Hey, Carol, Roger, I'd spent
some money on a new pair of shoes."

That makes me a little uncomfortable.

Makes me squirm.

So money is hard for me, at least.

Anxiety is also complex and
difficult in, in similar ways.

Uh, I can consciously choose to not
share something with you because I

don't want to be a burden to you, or
because I think that the things that

I struggle with or the things that I'm
worried about are no different from the

things that you probably worry about.

So who am I to burden you with
what I'm feeling right now?

It's a conscious decision
not to share those things.

Other times, it's a little bit
less conscious of a decision,

and I got too many things to do.

Life is go, go, go.

I put those things in a box, put
them on a shelf, shut the door,

forget about them completely.

So they're slippery topics, and so
whenever we hear Jesus and whenever

we know that Jesus is directly
addressing things like money and

anxiety, my ears are open and I'm
ready for some concrete instruction.

Do this, don't do that, and here's why.

So here I am preparing for this
message today, and I'm going through

the, the, the words of Jesus and
I feel like something is missing.

Like whenever you're about to leave and
you're looking for your keys and your

wallet before you head out the door.

I literally start counting
the sentences in this passage.

All 19 sentences, and not
including the one that Jesus says

to look at the birds of the air.

There are five sentences that Jesus
uses to give you specific direction.

Don't do this or do this.

Only five.

70% of what Jesus is saying is
either an observation or a question

It's either an observation or a question.

So just to put that into perspective,
imagine if you and I are having a

conversation and 70% of what I say
to you is, "Okay, so can you tell

me a little bit more about that?"

Or, "What I'm hearing you say is this,"
or, "What I know to be true about,

like, the natural world is this."

That's a completely different
conversation than us going back and

forth and 70% of me telling you is
what to do and why and direction.

It's different.

Now, I'm not saying that that's wrong.

Sometimes there's a time and
a place for that, and Jesus

gives us a lot of those things.

But talking about money and
anxiety today, Jesus addressed it

in a way that I did not expect.

I experienced it more like
I experience a painting.

Like, like a piece of art where
you have to, like, sit back.

Yeah.

You have to sit back
and you have to watch.

You have to stare at it for a little bit.

Recently, Aubrey and I had the
chance to go to Washington, D.C.,

and these photos are from
the National Gallery of Art.

Van Gogh and Monet, and our favorite
was the impressionist style of art.

And you can really just sit.

There, there are, like, chairs
that you can just sit in front of

these pieces of art and just stare
at them for a really long time

So that's kinda how I experienced
Jesus in this passage.

Um, but you'll notice some of those paint,
some of those pictures are really close.

And if you look on a phone where
it's a little bit more high, like

it's a little bit higher resolution,
you'll see the texture that is

literally coming off of the canvas.

There are layers and layers and layers.

So whenever you get super close,
you start to see the pops of color

and the layers and the depth.

But whenever you step
back, it's more blended.

And I feel like that is exactly how
Jesus chose to talk about things today.

He is painting in layers.

He is saying something spiritual,
he's saying something material,

and then he's blending it.

He's saying something spiritual and then
material, and then he's blending it.

Spiritual, material, and he's blending it.

And there are three examples in
the very beginning of our passage

that we're gonna walk through.

And watch how Jesus does it.

We can go to that first example.

"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures
on earth, where moth and rust destroy

and where thieves break in and steal.

But instead, lay up for yourselves
treasures in heaven, where neither

moth destroys or thieves do not
break up and st- break in and steal."

Then he blends it.

"For where your treasure is,
there your heart will be also."

The next one.

If your eye is healthy, your
whole body will be full of light.

But if your eye is bad, your whole
body will be full of darkness.

The eye is the lamp of the body.

Inner light, inner darkness, your
eyeballs as the door, the doorway or

the window to tell the difference.

The next one says, "Nobody
can serve two masters.

Either you will hate the one and
love the other, or be devoted

to one and despise the other."

And then a spiritual claim, "You cannot
serve God and mammon," or God and money.

So you kind of get what he's doing here.

Those are three concrete examples.

Then he uses my favorite
word in the entire passage.

He says, "Therefore."

So there, now that you see what's
happening, he says, "Therefore, I tell

you, don't be anxious about your life,
what you will eat, drink, or wear."

Is life not more than food and
the body more than clothing?

So you kinda get the hang of it.

Let's go another one.

Look at the birds of the air.

They neither sow nor reap nor
gather into barns, yet your

heavenly Father feeds them.

Consider the lilies of the field.

They neither toil nor spin

Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all of his
glory was not arrayed like one of these.

But if God so clothes the grass, the
grass of the field, which today is alive

and gone tomorrow, how much more will
he clothe you, O you of little faith?

So what do we take from
Jesus, this master painter?

I think at the very least, birds
of the air, lilies of the field,

and looking into somebody's eyes.

Gabe set us up for success
here, really diving into these

things that use our senses.

Whenever I've been going for a
walk recently, whenever I've been

doing my quiet time in the morning,
I just go sit out on the front

porch and I listen to the birds.

And it's things like my senses, like
listening, that really ground me in the

present moment, or my sense of smell,
or my sense of taste, really savoring

a good meal, that grounds me in the
present moment where I believe Jesus

is saying, "This is where God is found.

This is where an aspect
of heaven can be found."

So we're kind of going in swoops here.

We're painting an abstract, but
we skipped over something really

concrete that I want to go back
to, and it is found in verse 24.

So I'm going to ask you
guys to read it with me.

I will read every single
word except for the last one.

You might have a different word
according to the translation that you

have in your lap, but I would just ask
that you read the last one with me.

Okay?

"Nobody can serve two masters.

For either he will hate the one
and love the other, or be devoted

to one and despise the other."

Ready?

"You cannot serve God and…"

Money.

Okay.

Money, mammon, I heard.

There's something really interesting about
this word, and it's that whenever the

gospel writers were translating Jesus'
words from Aramaic to Greek, they chose

to leave this one word untranslated.

They just spelt it out, just the letters.

And the only time that you leave a
word un- just spelt the let- just

spelt out, just the letters, when
moving from one language to the

next, is whenever it's a proper name

So Jesus and the early church chose to use
a personal name to describe this concept

of money, which tells me that he's not
talking about an economic store of value

that you can pull out of your pocket.

He's not talking about coin here.

Jesus feels like this topic is best
dealt with by assigning it a personal

name, a spiritual name, a spiritual
deity behind the concept of money.

Jesus is naming a demonic force

Now, right up front, I will tell
you that that is hard for me.

I go through seasons where I am more
or less open to spiritual activity.

I oscillate between over-spiritualizing
things or under-spiritualizing things,

o- over-rationalizing things rather.

For me, the difference is saying,
"Oh yeah, I could see how that might

be spiritual, but also maybe not.

I guess we'll never know

Versus saying, "Okay, I hear you,
and I see how that is contrary to

the Kingdom of God or to God's heart.

Let me pray specifically
about that for you.

Let me pray specifically
against that for you."

For me, that's the difference,
and I go back and forth.

And lately, I've been in a season of
the former, where these things are hard

But along this journey, a man named C.S.

Lewis has been really helpful for me.

A man who started out as an atheist,
converted to Christianity, and has

been just a faithful writer about
the morality and spirituality, about

rationalism and about theology.

And he just thread, he, like,
like a painter, he kind of weaves

this beautiful picture together.

And one of his books that does this
really well is The Screwtape Letters.

In that book, he paints this satirical
interplay between a junior demon

and a senior demon as they look to
make this human's life miserable.

So on one side, you have, like,
things that you and I encounter in

day-to-day life that seem pretty normal.

But then behind the scenes in this book,
you kind of get a picture of what these

demons are doing and saying and trying,
and, and trying to use and manipulate and

contort things to make this human's life
miserable, to pull him away from God.

And it's this really cool
picture that you get to see.

But C.S.

Lewis, same guy, has this quote that
says, "When it comes to devils, there

are two equal and opposite errors.

Either you can write them off completely,
just disbelieve in their existence,

or the other is to believe but feel an
excessive and unhealthy interest in them.

The demons are equally
pleased with both extremes."

C.S.

Lewis says that they hail a materialist
and a magician with the same delight

So I find hope in that quote because
I, well, first of all, I feel

seen, kind of going back and forth.

Neither of those is necessarily right.

There's some middle ground.

And so it's that hope, that middle
ground that I carry into this passage.

Let us not fall onto
either opposite extreme

But let's not limit
ourselves just to Lewis.

Let's consider the entire Christian faith.

If we were to cut out all of the
supernatural moments in our Bibles,

we would probably destroy our Bible.

Even if it was, like, the really dark
and scary ones, we would still damage

our Bible because the Bible is full of
examples when the supernatural, when

the spiritual and the material overlap

So our faith as Christians is founded
on God's love and power, but it does

not ignore this problem of evil.

It's very honest about the problem of
evil, and evil actually originates from

a distortion of God's love and power.

If you'll remember, it was wanting
to be like God that was the fall

of man and the fall of Lucifer.

We see the echoes of that today,
something that is intended for good,

maybe even something that is neutral.

I know I hear a lot of these things around
the conversations around technology.

It's neutral.

Things that are intended for good
or neutral that can actually be

exploitative, actually be evil.

So again, we return to this
master painter of Jesus, who is

painting in more than one layer

I'm not asking you to decide
where you stand, and I don't think

Jesus is giving you what to think.

I think Jesus is giving us something
about how to think, about how to live

in this world, a worldview where there
are things that we don't always see.

So the question that I was faced with
is, do I just want to lean on what I can

understand, what I can see with my eyes?

Or am I willing to admit that there
are powers beyond what I can see

And if I can put my screw tape hat on
just really quick, I think the spiritual

deity of mammon would love it if you
just viewed the world in material terms.

A pure materialist view of
people would view people as a

means to an end, and that's it.

A materialist view of the Earth would
see it as a resource to be exploited

It would see money as just a number

Time as linear and finite

Because then what mammon whispers into
your ear is that you can control all

You can control all of these things.

Your financial security, that
number, it's a, it's, it's just math.

It's just a numbers game.

It's under control.

Your relationships, your network

Also able to be controlled.

Your comforts

That's a pretty easy one.

At your service.

Controlled.

Time?

This one really hits home for me.

With enough planning and preparation,
your time can be under control

But what I take away from Jesus whenever
he uses that word, that is a personal

name, is that he calls that bluff.

He says, "No, mammon, you are an
idol hiding behind money, behind

control, and you cannot coexist in
the hearts of my people with God.

No, mammon, I refuse to reduce people
to anything less than a child of God,

somebody who bears my father's image.

No, mammon, I refuse to compartmentalize
my mind from my body, from my spirit.

It is all one masterpiece."

And he doesn't just teach this.

Jesus embodies this.

If you look around our passage
in your Bible, you will find the

word father used dozens of times.

In Christ, we see a revelation of
dependence and trust and sacrifice.

To call God Father is for Jesus to
relinquish control of everything,

and for us to follow Jesus is to
relinquish control of everything.

Control of my money and my possessions,
control of my time and my days, control

of harms done to me and harms done by me.

To follow Jesus is to relinquish
control to the point of death because

as with Christ, who was obedient
to the point of death, we see the

faithfulness of his father, whom he
trusted to raise him back to life.

And what is true for Jesus is true for us.

So that is what I take away from
Jesus in this passage, is every single

day to address the idol of mammon
head-on and choose to relinquish

control to my father in heaven,
who literally says that he knows…

Jesus says that God knows
we need these things.

He admits at the very end of this
passage that the Gentiles seek these

things, but your father in heaven
who knows we need these things.

And then he invites us to
follow the kingdom of…

to pursue the kingdom of heaven.

Which, by the way, the kingdom of
heaven that he's talking about happens

to be built on relationships with
real people, not means to an end

So as I was wrestling, and as I have
wrestled a long time with this dance of

spiritualization and non-spiritualization,
I have found that there is a litmus

test that's been really helpful for
me to address things behind the scenes

that I can't see with my eyes head on.

And so I'm going to share that with you.

It's like a bridge between
the material and the spiritual

There are four things, I think
we have a slide for this.

There are four things that you can
do with your treasure on Earth.

You can spend it, you can save it,
you can invest it, or you can give it

If you spend it, you have it for
a little bit and then you exchange

it for something of your own.

If you save it, you're putting it
somewhere and saving it for a later time.

If you invest it, you're taking some sort
of risk and hoping for some sort of return

And w- I just wanna say that
this applies to money, and

that's what comes to mind for me.

But I think it also applies to
other types of earthly treasure.

I think we're all rich and poor in
different ways, so maybe it's time.

Maybe it's time that we are rich in

But the first three, spending, saving, and
investing, you retain control in some way.

Only in giving do you say,
"I'm letting go completely

I know that whenever I run this
litmus test on some of the things

that I feel like I have a really tight
grip on, I tend to feel a tension.

And at that point, I know that
the idol is in the room for me

But I find that giving is the
cure because I actually discover

that I'm less dependent on this
thing than I actually thought.

And I discover that God is
actually better than I thought

And there's actually joy to me that
is available in the giving because it

happens in relationship with real people.

And I'm able to release something to them
to do something that I can't do on my own.

And I really think that that is a picture
of building the kingdom of heaven,

which is what Jesus calls us to do

Paul is talking to the
Corinthian church in 2

Corinthians 8:9

He's talking to them
about giving generously.

And he says, "For you know the grace of
our Lord Jesus, that though he was rich,

yet for your sake he became poor, so that
you, by his poverty, might become rich."