The secret treasure
Matthew 6:19-24
“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. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
Matthew 6:19-21
Almost everything we work hard to get is going to be taken away from us, it cannot last. So Jesus tells us to work for what he calls treasure in heaven. So here’s a question, how do we store up treasure in heaven?
Well, here are three ways:
- Trusting Jesus and believing the gospel
- The things you do out of love for others
- The way your character changes to become like Jesus
Jesus says something else too; the thing that maters to you most… that is where your heart really lies. What do you love more than anything else?
A teenage boy had just passed his driving test. He asked his dad if he could borrow the car each day so that he could drive to college. His father saw a big opportunity to get some leverage over his son so he agreed providing certain conditions were met. He
said, "I'll make a deal with you. If you do all your homework as soon as you get home from college, and keep your bedroom clean and stop watching so much TV you can borrow the car". The boy agreed. “There’s just one more condition”, the father said, “I can’t stand your hair that length, you have to get it cut!”
A month later the boy came back and again asked his father if they
could discuss his use of the car. His father said, "Son, I am very proud of you. You are getting your homework done, your bedroom is spotless and I haven’t seen you watch TV all month. Only one problem… your hair is too long!” The young man waited a moment and replied, "You know dad, I've been thinking about that. You know Samson had long hair, Moses had long hair, Noah had long hair, and even Jesus had long hair."
His father replied, "Yes son, and they walked everywhere they went!"
What do you love more than anything else? The thing that matters to you most controls your destiny!
So what is stopping you trusting in Jesus, or learning to be like him, or doing things that show your love for others. I bet it is something that will not last. You need to get your vision sorted out…
Distorted vision
What Jesus said next sounds weird:
“Your eye is a lamp that provides light for your body. When your eye is good, your whole body is filled with light. But when your eye is bad, your whole body is filled with darkness. And if the light you think you have is actually darkness, how deep that darkness is!”
Matthew 6:22-23 
What does he mean when he speaks of a good eye and a bad eye? The word Jesus used for good can also mean generous and the word he uses for bad can also mean grudging or stingy. If you read this whole paragraph, you see that Jesus begins by talking about treasure and ends by discussing money. So it fits well to render these verses:
“Your eye is a lamp that provides light for your body. When your eye is generous, your whole body is filled with light. But when your eye is grudging, your whole body is filled with darkness. And if the light you think you have is actually darkness, how deep that darkness is!”
Some people are very grudging when they look at others; they are cynical and sceptical, always thinking the worst of others. Jesus is saying that people like this are full of darkness. A grudging eye is psychologically and spiritually very damaging.
Other people are very generous in the way they see others. They always think the best and put the best construction on what others do… people like that are full of light. They are happier and healthier because of the way they think about others!
As usual, Eugene Pettersen puts it powerfully in The Message:
“Your eyes are windows into your body. If you open your eyes wide in wonder and belief, your body fills up with light. If you live squinty-eyed in greed and distrust, your body is a dank cellar. If you pull the blinds on your windows, what a dark life you will have!”
Matthew 6:22-23 in The Message
So you get a choice, to live in warm daylight or to live in a dark dank cellar and it all depends on how you see other people!
Treasure in heaven
Jesus told a story about treasure and you will find it later on in Matthew’s gospel:
“The Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure that a man discovered hidden in a field. In his excitement, he hid it again and sold everything he owned to get enough money to buy the field.”
Matthew 13:44
Jesus is the king and his kingdom is the treasure. Living as a servant of Jesus is so wonderful it is worth selling your shirt to buy into. Whatever we do to accumulate treasure in heaven, he is already there – we already have the greatest treasure we could possess.
So the kingdom presents us with a choice:
“No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”
Matthew 6:24
The secret treasure is Jesus himself. 
Maybe you find this kind of thing very irritating; people like me are always banging on about your need to change and you don’t think that you can; “So what if I am cynical and jaded, I was born that way, leave me alone”. This is where the gospel comes in – Jesus came to do something for you that we cannot do for yourselves.
First, he gives us bigger ambitions. Maybe you want to be a millionaire? What a pointless goal in life! There is something bigger… to be a servant of God, live for others and build something that will last forever. Your house, your car and your money will be destroyed, but not your love or your compassion or your acts of love and mercy, they cannot be destroyed. They are treasure in heaven.
Second, he gives us a transformed view of people – he can make a grudging eye into a good one. So you no longer squint at our friends looking for things you can criticise, you look for the good in them, to see things you can praise. This is like switching a light on in a dark cellar, it changes everything about you. People will notice that difference straight away.
Third, and most important, he makes heaven possible for jaded, cynical sinners like all of us here. When he died, he died for us – paying the price of sin so that we could go free.
All this begins when you let yourself see Christ in a new light, when you get to the point when you realise he is worth selling your shirt for, he is the hidden treasure. I once saw Jesus as a Jewish looser who talked his way into an early and tragic death. I saw things differently, when I actually read his story for myself. The facts changed the way I see Jesus.
So who is Jesus to you – a looser or a saviour?
It may be worth taking a look at verses 22-23 again before you decide. Look at Jesus with a generous eye and you will be filled with light, look at him with a jaded and cynical eye and you are plunged into darkness.
Store up treasure in heaven by all means, but heaven is already full of treasure – Jesus himself! All this becomes yours when you put your faith in him.
Maybe you can’t change, but you can choose how you see Jesus and then put your faith in him. He becomes your treasure in heaven. Then he changes you – from the inside outwards.