Heart of the Treasure

 The Heart of the Treasure

First Series – Sermon Six

Original by George MacDonald

Paraphrase by Dale R. Howie

 

Does God give us the things our hearts desire, or does He give us what to desire?

In this pivotal sermon of the First Series, George MacDonald answers that question by revealing what the Treasure truly is. It is Jesus. God has given us the true desire of every heart. It is not something, but Someone.

"The Son came to be Life, before our eyes and in our hearts, revealing what we were created to be." In giving us His Son, the Father has placed before us the very Life for which we were made. Every longing of the human heart, however confused or misdirected, is ultimately a longing for Him.

MacDonald writes, "This love is what we grope for in our darkness, being driven by the hunger of our desire." We often mistake our deepest hunger for a desire after temporary things, yet beneath every lesser longing is the cry of the heart. When our desire finally finds the Son, it discovers the Treasure it has been seeking all along.

"Take great joy in the Eternal! His gifts are coming, and they are all your heart desires!" (Psalm 37:4)

 

Outline

Sermon Question: What is the Treasure Jesus speaks of?

P1 - The Word – Jesus is the Treasure of every true heart.

 

      T - The Heart – Our hearts become like whatever they treasure.

 

R1 - The Temporary – An eternal heart cannot be satisfied with temporary treasures.

 

 

Matthew 6:19-21 NLT

 "Don't store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be."

 

The Word

Question: Why is Jesus the Treasure?

To understand the words of Jesus is the mission of life, for within them lies the understanding of The Word Himself. To receive Jesus is to receive the Father and so have Life within ourselves. This is the original and higher Life we all seek, whether we know it or not.

The Word, Jesus Himself, is the Life through whom we truly live. Any word worthy of being called truth becomes food for the soul. How much more, then, The Word—not as an abstract law or religious principle, but as a living relationship of body, soul, heart, and will with the One who gave birth to us all.

The Son came to be Life, before our eyes and within our hearts, revealing what we were created to be. He came that we might behold the Truth in Him and awaken to that same longing within ourselves. Every true desire finds its fulfillment in Him.

Jesus is the Truth—not merely as something to be understood, but as understanding itself; the living, being, doing, and creating Truth. "I am the Truth," He said. As we become like Him, we too begin to understand the Truth, not simply with our minds, but because His Life has become our own.

 If this is true, then God has already given us the Treasure. He has given us His Son. In Him every true desire finds its home, for the Treasure of heaven is not something to possess, but Someone to know.

Answer: Because in Him we discover the Life for which we were created.

 

The Heart

Question: Why does Jesus warn us about earthly treasures?

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

The full meaning of these words is not immediately apparent. Their simplicity hides a depth that must be sought. They are so comprehensive that, once understood, there is little more to be said and everything to be done.

"Why should we not store up treasures upon earth?"

"Because moth and rust corrupt them, and thieves break in and steal."

"And so we lose our treasure?"

"Yes, it is consumed by the moth, the rust, and the thief."

"Then is our Lord's reason simply that earthly treasures are temporary and corruptible?"

"No. Jesus adds a for: 'For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.'"

"Of course the heart will be where the treasure is—but what has that to do with His argument?"

Everything. For what becomes one with the treasure shares the destiny of the treasure. If the heart lives in a treasure-house where moth and rust corrupt, then the heart itself is exposed to the same corruption. The treasure is not the only thing that deteriorates. The heart that clings to it slowly becomes rusty, moth-eaten, and corrupted as well.

Many a man or woman, appearing healthy and flourishing before the world, carries within a heart already eaten away by rust and moth. Outward strength or beauty may conceal an inward life quietly consumed by the very things it treasures.

"But this is only a metaphor."

Yes—but is the reality less profound than the metaphor? Do the moth and the rust speak merely of physical decay? And is the heart merely the organ that beats within our bodies? Surely not. The heart is the center of our true self, the wellspring from which life itself flows.

If God sees our hearts corroded by the rust of anxious care, or eaten through by the worms of ambition, greed, or pride, then He simply sees them as they truly are. God always sees reality. One day we also shall see our hearts as they are, weakened by corrupting influences and prey to diseases we scarcely knew existed.

Nor does this warning belong only to those who worship money. It belongs equally to all who treasure what is temporary. Some seek the praise of men more than the pleasure of God. Others make a display of wealth, intellect, influence, art, or talent, gathering the admiration of others as though such opinions were treasures worthy of storing away. Yet whatever our earthly treasure may be, our hearts quietly become like the thing we cherish most.

Answer: Because our hearts always become like what they love most.

 

The Temporary

Question: What is the danger of temporary treasures?

The warning of our Lord reaches beyond the love of money. It extends to every temporary pleasure, every earthly delight that becomes the center of our lives. The danger is not that such pleasures are unreal. They are genuinely pleasurable. Nor is it merely that they pass away and leave disappointment behind, though they surely do. The deeper harm lies elsewhere.

We were created in the image of the everlasting God. How tragic, then, that a life made for the eternal should make its home among things that are fading away. We cling to what is passing as though it were our highest good, until the corruption of those temporary treasures slowly becomes our own. The disease is not in the pleasures themselves, but in allowing them to become the treasure of the heart.

Such diseases gradually assume a place that belongs only to our true nature. They become, as it were, a false self—appearing stronger than the life God placed within us, while all the time leading us toward darkness and death. They draw us downward into holes in the earth, where our budding wings wither in the dampness and fall helplessly from our shoulders.

Yet we were never created for such a place. We were made for open fields and mountain heights, for spreading our butterfly wings beneath the warmth of the sun. There they grow strong through flight until they are able to carry the God-born into the presence of their Father. Herein lies the true harm of treasuring what is temporary: not simply that it passes away, but that it keeps us from becoming what we were created to be.

The heart that lives in the treasure-house of heaven is another matter altogether. Though tempted by the devil, it is first led by the Spirit into the wilderness. There, even in temptation, its treasure remains untouched because its life is hidden with Christ in God. The moth cannot consume it, the rust cannot corrupt it, and no thief can steal it away.

Answer: They cannot satisfy an eternal heart.

Sermon Answer: The Treasure is not something to possess, but Someone to know.

 

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Continue your Quest . . .

Next Sermon - Temptation in the Wilderness

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CLIFF NOTES WITH MACDONALD’S ORIGINAL QUOTES

 

The Word

“To understand the words of our Lord is the business of life. For it is the main road to the understanding of The Word himself. And to receive him is to receive the Father, and so to have Life in ourselves. And Life, the higher, the deeper, the simpler, the original, is the business of life.”

 

“The Son came forth to be, before our eyes and in our hearts, that which he had made us for, that we might behold the truth in him, and cry out for the living God, who, in the highest sense of all is The Truth, not as understood, but as understanding, living, and being, doing and creating the truth. "I am the truth," said our Lord; and by those who are in some measure like him in being the truth, the Word can be understood. Let us try to understand him.”

 

The Heart

 

“That what is with the treasure must fare as the treasure; that the heart which haunts the treasure-house where the moth and rust corrupt, will be exposed to the same ravages as the treasure, will itself be rusted and moth-eaten.”

 

“Nor does the lesson apply to those only who worship Mammon, who give their lives, their best energies to the accumulation of wealth: it applies to those equally who in any way worship the transitory; who seek the praise of men more than the praise of God; who would make a show in the world by wealth, by taste, by intellect, by power, by art, by genius of any kind, and so would gather golden opinions to be treasured in a storehouse of earth.”

 

“But the hurt lies in this—that the immortal, the infinite, created in the image of the everlasting God, is housed with the fading and the corrupting, and clings to them as its good—clings to them till it is infected and interpenetrated with their proper diseases, which assume in it a form more terrible in proportion to the superiority of its kind, that which is mere decay in the one becoming moral vileness in the other, Therein lies the hurt.”

 

The Temporary

 

“He whose heart is sound because it haunts the treasure-house of Heaven.”