Investing in Heaven
Preached January 29, 2016 at Bible Baptist’s annual Stewardship – Vision Banquet.
Matthew 6:19-21
Everyone is investing their money, time, and talents in something. The question is where are you investing?
I. The INSECURITY of earthly investments (v. 19).
Are your investments eternally secure? Are you making wise investments that will bring eternal dividends.
A. But lay up FOR YOURSELVES treasures in heaven. Your stewardship investment today will pay off for YOU in eternity.
1. Not everyone will have the same when they get to heaven. Some will be rewarded for faithful stewardship. Others will have nothing—If you accumulate wealth only to enrich yourself with material goods on earth, you will have nothing in eternity. As it says in 1 Corinthians 3:15, “…he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.”
2. To have a reward in heaven you must invest in heaven. The very words “lay up” indicate we must do something. If you don’t “LAY UP” a treasure, you will not have a treasure.
Randy Alcorn, in his book “The Treasure Principle” talks about how some Christians dread the thought of leaving this world. The reason is their treasures are in this world. They have laid up nothing in heaven. Each day brings us closer to death. If your treasures are on earth, the closer you get to death, the closer you get to LOSING your treasures. On the other hand, if you have faithfully been laying up treasures in heaven, the nearer you get to dying, the closer you are moving towards your treasures, rather than leaving them behind to be burnt up.
II. The INSURANCE of Investments in Heaven (v. 20).
Wall Street may crash, but Heaven’s streets will still be paved with gold. Banks on earth fail, but the Bank of Heaven still pays eternal dividends on investments.
A. HOW do you “lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven?”
Several years ago a layman named Pat Neff gave this testimony before the Southern Baptist Convention: “All my life I have heard preachers tell their congregations to lay up treasures in heaven but no one ever told me how to get my treasures into heaven. I had to figure it out for myself. The only way to get our treasures into heaven is to put them into something that is going to heaven. Cattle, lands, houses, stocks and bonds, oil, coal, and the like are not going to heaven. Only men, women, boys and girls are going to heaven. Therefore, if I am to lay up my treasures in heaven, I must invest them in the work of winning souls to get them to heaven.”
B. Look for the HIDDEN potential in people. Some times you hear it said about someone who appears not to have it altogether, “He/ she doesn’t have much of a future.”
PDF sermon here: SERMON LINK
