Ever had a dream? Something you wanted…more than a passing whim or desire…a dream…a desire for something that drives you…motivates you…pushes you to sacrifice and give of your energies to accomplish?

Most of us have dreams. Desires that we give our heart and soul to accomplish.

For some of us the dreams are financial…

A certain level of savings

A certain kind of house

A certain car

A certain kind of investment.

For some the dreams are stuff…we just like our toys…

A Boat

A Vehicle

A special appliance

A tool

A souped up computer

For others the dreams that keep us awake at night are things we’d like to do…

Fly in a plane

Raft a river

Skydive out of a plane

Travel throughout Europe by back pack

Dreams are good…they give life meaning and excitement. They motivate us to go for the best that life has to offer.

We live in a world that is designed to foster dreams. Commercials sell us on the latest gadget or experience or product that will take us one step closer to the good life. Hollywood tells us what we need and want. Magazines shout from the rack what it is that we need in our lives and how to live our lives better…more peaceful, richer, fuller, happier, and less busy.

When I think of all that is out there – to have, and to experience, and to attain and to love – something inside me begins to dream of what life might be like if I had everything my heart desired. It happens all the time. The desire in me wells up an imagination of life as it could be…no should be…for me.

There is another side to me though…The part of me that loves Christ usually remembers that all the things I pursue and make a priority will at some point disappoint me. Often the chase is more fun than the attainment. Life has taught me just what Jesus taught…the things that I treasure (apart from God) can never bring lasting satisfaction. The dreams all end up in a big pile of useless things and experiences.

QUESTION: Have you ever had the experience of dreaming of something for a long time…paid the costs to make the dream a reality…and then experienced disappointment when the dream was met?

Jesus said it like this…

Don't store up treasures on earth! Moths and rust can destroy them, and thieves can break in and steal them. Instead, store up your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy them, and thieves cannot break in and steal them. Your heart will always be where your treasure is.

(Mat 6:19-21)

Jesus meaning is very clear when he talks about what the dreams of our life should be focused on. When Christ closed his eyes and dreamt…he dreamt of a Kingdom that was different from anything our world had known or expected. He dreamt of a kingdom that wasn’t set up on power, or money or happiness. He dreamt of a Kingdom that would change the world forever. He talked of a Kingdom that was filled with Treasures in heaven.

In I Cor 9:24-27 Paul says…

You know that many runners enter a race, and only one of them wins the prize. So run to win! Athletes work hard to win a crown that cannot last, but we do it for a crown that will last forever. I don't run without a goal. And I don't box by beating my fists in the air. I keep my body under control and make it my slave, so I won't lose out after telling the good news to others.

(1Co 9:24-27)

Life is a race of sorts. Lots of things are competing for our affection and to be the object of our desire. And Christ invites us to run the race. To set our focus and our desires in a Kingdom…on treasures…on dreams that will not fade in value, that will not disappoint, that will not reduce our human existence to one more experience after another. Jesus said, “Don’t store up treasures on earth! Moth and rust destroy them and thieves break in and steal them.” Paul said, “Athletes work hard to win a crown that cannot last forever, but we run the race for a crown that will last forever.”

As a follower of Christ the prime object of my dreams and hopes and desires – my treasure or my crown – must be different than that of my neighbor. God calls us to a higher purpose. God invites us to a higher calling. And he has been about the business of calling people to something more through out all of human history.

Abraham
David
Prophets
Peter
Paul

God’s concern isn’t comfort or happiness. God’s concern isn’t about new experiences. God’s concern isn’t for stunning success. God’s concern is about a world made different. A world that is changed. A world where sin has lost its power and influence. A world that is freed from the bondage of money. A world that is free from dreams that never deliver the promised fun and the promised hope.

That’s where stewardship comes in. Jesus invites us to pursue a different kingdom. A kingdom where the treasure is in some future world. He invites us to run a race…and the crown is eternal. Not temporary. He invites us to abandon the control our own hopes and dreams have on our lives and to live lives by a different agenda. But you and I have a choice. We must decide what’s most important. We must decide what in our life is worth chasing. We must decide what treasure we pursue…we must decide what crown strive to win. And that is what stewardship is about. For Jesus, stewardship isn’t about raising money or managing what we have got. It is about something bigger. For Jesus, stewardship is all about choosing what we chase in life. It’s an issue of purpose.

Like so much of what Jesus spent his time talking about…some people got it and some didn’t.

Zacchaeus

We don’t really know what it was that compelled Zacchaeus’s interest in Jesus. We don’t know why the crooked tax collector would care what an itinerant preacher from Galilee would say. But something about Jesus life stirred interest in Zacchaeus. And after a lifetime of cheating and bullying people and stealing from people….after a lifetime of simply pursuing his own kingdom…Zacchaeus switched agenda’s. In Luke 19:8 we read…[read passage]

Zacchaeus made this massive transition from kingdom of this world – from the pursuit of what mattered to him to the pursuit of the Kingdom. He took his worldly resources and invested them in people. And that transaction totally changed his life.

On the other hand…

Rich Young Ruler

This guy had what I would deem a sincere desire to follow Christ. I think he knew that the life he was living was empty. I think he knew that his pursuit of wealth was leaving him empty. I think he knew something was missing from life. That life needed a new orientation, a new purpose. I think the same thing that drew Zacchaeus to Christ is what pulled this successful, wealthy and religious man towards Jesus. He had it all but he wanted Jesus too. And then in Mark 10:21 we read…[read passage]

In other words Jesus is saying…to follow me means a total restructuring of your life. A total new purpose. A totally new way of living. And for you: begin by giving it all away. It wasn’t a model that Jesus was establishing but it was the word of God challenging the heart of a person about the pursuit and purpose of his life.

And the rich young ruler couldn’t do it. His desire to follow Christ and his desire for riches were all tied up together. The text says, “…the man’s face fell, and he went sadly away because he had many possessions.” He couldn’t reorient his life. He couldn’t put the things of God before the stuff he had accumulated.

Rich Fool

Perhaps the saddest example from scripture is the story of the rich fool. The man who spent a life time building his farm business. The man who had it all – who in fact built bigger barns to have a place to hold all the pursuits of his life, his stuff. Then the man dies. Dies before the barns are even filled with his stuff. And Jesus summarizes this mans life by saying, “You fool! You spent your life in pursuit of a kingdom that can’t last. In pursuit of stuff that won’t matter. In pursuit of stuff. And through that you lost what your life is really all about. You lost the purpose for which God created you. You fool!

Question: When you think about it… what’s your treasure?

Not what do you want it to be…but what is it?

It may be your money…the pursuit of bigger balances at the bank.
It may be your time…maybe the highest value in your life is the ability to control what you do with the time you’ve got.
It may be your career…always working a new angle…to get ahead. To stay on the upward climb.
Maybe it’s your car.
Maybe it’s eating out.
Maybe it’s your family. Family can be a kingdom – a desire to keep the kids close – to pursue family at the cost of a kingdom perspective.
Maybe it’s sports…it’s the Red Sox’s that win the day in your heart

For me…

[use an example from your own life showing how earthly treasures don’t matter but people do.]

The truest treasure that will last is people. Your cars and boats and houses don’t matter to God. Your career or your sports or how close your family lives to you – they don’t matter to God. God doesn’t care about success, status and stuff. But rather when you look at the life of Jesus, when you look at the history of God through the Old Testament, you see that the prime emphasis of God through human history is people.

Jesus invested a lot of his time in people.

Jesus said, “I have come to seek and to save the lost.”

Jesus said, “I have not come to be served but to serve people and to give my life as a ransom for many.”

Jesus shared the Father’s love and concern for people. It’s what drove him to the cross. People are the only thing that will last. People are the only thing that will make it when time stops and history ceases.

And Stewardship is all about chasing the things God chases. Investing our lives in God’s purposes. It happens as I love and serve and touch and feed and clothe and seek and save and give. Stewardship happens when I live life with a divine commission to spend my life investing in people.

It happens in the work place when I put the needs of the person before the bottom line.

It happens in the home when I seek to raise kids who love God and want to follow God…even when that means they could be called by God to something that pulls them away from me.

It happens in the gas station when I spend the extra time getting to know the attendant and I care about him and his family as much as I do the price of gas. When I find out he’s lonely and I give him value.

It happens in my church when I give my money…not to propagate a ministry…or as a ploy to get my way…but because that ministry touches the lives of people every day. And that matters.

It happens in my neighborhood when I live in such a way that people wonder what makes me different and I take the time to share the love of Christ with them.

It happens when I go about normal life activities with God’s for people at the forefront of my mind.

QUESTION: What would happen…what would it look like for you…what changes would need to be made in your life…for you to live like the Kingdom of God mattered above all the other stuff?

It probably would mean a brutally honest conversation with yourself. An honest assessment of what you truly treasure in this world. It would probably mean a reorganization of how you invest what God has given to you…your time, your energy, your car, your home, your clothes, your money.

QUESTION: What needs to change in your life…what needs to happen to align your life with the Kingdom of God? With treasures that last?

What things do you treasure now that are getting in the way of eternal treasure and the purposes of God? Look at your calendar. Look at your bank statement. Look at your giving record. What do they say about your treasure?

Think about it for a moment. What would happen if we took the words of Christ seriously and churches all over North America did the same? What would it look like if thousands of followers of Christ began to sell off, give away and trade in their treasures…so they could re-invest in God’s greatest treasure? What if it actually happened?

WELCOME