Storing Up Heavenly Treasure
Jake Wetherbee | The Resting Place Apostolic Family | Matthew 6:19-21
What does it actually mean to store up heavenly treasure? In this message from The Resting Place Apostolic Family in Tampa, FL, we walk through Matthew 6:19-21 to uncover what heaven counts as treasure, why the heart is the storehouse where it collects, and how ordinary daily obedience becomes something that lasts forever.
WELCOME
You’re going to have to bear with me. Not only do I have a southern accent, but I’ve got a nasally southern accent today. I’ll try to go slow. I’ve got the southern accent, I don’t have the southern drawl, maybe every once in a while. You get used to hearing yourself.
Well, hey y’all. Good morning. It’s good to see everyone. Welcome, welcome to our new family members. You’ve probably been a part of the family for a while, but welcome to the Resting Place. We’re thankful to have y’all. I’m thankful to be here with y’all.
I sat on this word that the Lord gave me out of our teachings this week after what we were reading. Can I just tell y’all my honest opinion? At first I thought, “Man, we’ve been here, this is the Sermon on the Mount.” But as I was reading through, what stood out to me was Matthew 6. We’ll read it together, verses 19 through 21. I’m going to read it in the New Living Translation.
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 be also.
So I was thinking to myself, not only have we been spending this last year in the Sermon on the Mount, but Caleb has really been pressing into the treasures. So when that stood out to me, there was a little bit of reluctance, because I thought we might be redundant. But here’s the thing: when the Lord repeats himself in Scripture, and when he repeats himself prophetically through his people, it’s because he’s wanting to emphasize something that might need a little time for us to digest and absorb. Just because you eat doesn’t mean you immediately digest it. It takes some time for the nutrients to get into the body.
So as we go through today, some of this you may be very familiar with, but take some time to enjoy it. Take some time to eat of it. Whatever is relevant to you or stands out to you, sit on it, and then take it from here and explore it with the Lord. That’s my submission to you.
STORE UP TREASURES IN HEAVEN
In this passage, three things stood out to me that I’d like for us to at least scrape the surface of. Think of this as an opening of a door that you get to walk through and go on a journey with the Lord to explore a little bit more.
There’s mention of the heart. The heart is very important to God. It’s very important to his body. If you don’t have your heart, all the systems in your body fail. There are some things you can live without. It might be inconvenient, and you might need some assistance, but the heart, you lose that, you’re done. So we want to talk about that.
What is heavenly treasure? If we’re supposed to store up heavenly treasure, it would probably be helpful to know what treasure is according to heaven’s standard. And then lastly, how is it that we actually store it up? Because there are a lot of people who have an aversion. Maybe you were raised in church and taught that Christ was a vagabond, that he was poor, that he hated money. None of those things are true, and there are a lot of ways you can break that down. But there’s this idea that we shouldn’t think about inheritance, both in this life and the life to come. Actually, there is stewardship. The Lord wants you to steward heavenly treasure that will carry into eternity. I think that would be pretty important, if Jesus told us to store up heavenly treasure, to actually explore what that is.
THE HEART IS A TREASURY
So let’s get into the heart. “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” That’s verse 21 in Matthew 6. What we need to understand about the heart is that the heart unconnected to the Lord will always gravitate toward evil. But it was not designed for that. This idea that man is sinful and wicked, that wasn’t our origin point. Our origin point was that we were created as image bearers, to carry the likeness of God and to reveal and release his glory in the midst of the chaos that was outside the garden. If Adam and Eve hadn’t tripped up, the garden would have continued to expand. They would have taken dominion and stewardship, and they would have revealed that glory. But what the first Adam tripped up on, the second Adam restored us to.
There’s an idea in the church, because of some things Jesus has spoken, that your heart is just evil. But what we need to understand is that when we come to know the Lord, he gives us a new heart. You don’t have that old heart, the heart that was corrupted by the introduction of sin. Just speaking to that corruption for a moment, Matthew 15:17-19:
Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, and slander.
That is a heart disconnected from the Father. I’d like to think I was a pretty decent individual growing up, but I can tell you, even with the high moral integrity I was given from my parents, not being relationally connected and walking with the Lord, I drifted into probably all of them. Maybe not murder, fortunately, or I wouldn’t probably be here.
This new heart was prophesied thousands of years before Jesus ever came. You can go with me to Ezekiel 11:19-20, in the New Living Translation:
I will give them singleness of heart and put a new spirit within them.
God is revealing to Ezekiel the new covenant he’s going to establish eventually through the Messiah.
I will take away their stony, stubborn heart and give them a tender, responsive one, so that they will obey my decrees and regulations. Then they will truly be my people, and I will be their God.
The Lord repeats this through Ezekiel again a couple chapters later, in Ezekiel 36:25-27:
Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. Your filth will be washed away, and you will no longer worship idols. I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart. And I will put my spirit in you, so that you will follow my decrees and be careful to obey my regulations.
There’s that repetition we’re speaking to. 2 Corinthians 3:2-3:
You are a letter… written in our hearts, known and read by all men, being manifested that you are a letter of Christ, cared for by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on the tablets of human hearts.
God, who is the Word incarnate, has now made you an image bearer, so you’re a word too. What Paul is saying is that people were challenging whether he could be an apostle, whether he had credibility, and he said, “You are our credibility, because look at your life. You look more like Christ. You’re revealing Christ.” We’ve had to serve you in building you up into that. You are our letter of recommendation, because you are actually looking like and revealing Christ, in the way you have matured in him.
Last is Romans 2:28-29. Paul is saying, “He is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter, and his praise is not from men but from God.” Let me boil that down. We can’t make ourselves perfect. We can’t clean our own heart up. We have to come, by means of the Holy Spirit, to Jesus, and we have to give away the heart that we have in exchange for his heart, so that he can renew us and restore us back to that original design. It’s him who does the work. Really, the hardest part is just continually letting him do the work. It’s showing up and saying, “God, this is hard, this is painful. Please continue to show me this renewed heart, this heart that you gave me. I want to access it, I want to explore it, I want to live out of it.”
LIFE FLOWS FROM THE HEART
Another very important thing about the heart is that life actually flows from it. On a practical, physical level, the blood that gets circulated through your heart keeps you alive. But there’s a spiritual truth, an emotional truth to that too. Proverbs 4:23 says, “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.” Proverbs 23:6-7: “Do not eat the bread of a selfish man or desire his delicacies, for as he thinks in his heart, so is he. In behavior, one who manipulates says to you, ‘Eat and drink,’ yet his heart is not with you, but is begrudging the cause.”
Here again we’re seeing a truth: how we are in our heart will get expressed in our actions, in our words, in how we display ourselves and operate. Matthew 12:34-35, Jesus is responding to the Pharisees: “You brood of vipers, how can you speak good when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil.” Proverbs 10:11: “The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life, but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence.” Matthew 15:18: “But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man.”
What we see here is that the reality of whether you have that new heart or that old heart is going to show up in what’s coming out of the abundance. Where I put my focus is what’s going to multiply within.
Do you know that your heart is actually a storehouse? It’s a treasury. And funny enough, I didn’t even realize this when I was telling you that word “treasure.” That’s the origin point right there, and I didn’t even plan that. Matthew 12:35, the New Living Translation says it this way: “A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart.” That could also be translated storehouse. The idea remains true: this is a storehouse, this is a treasury. The question is, what is piled up in there? What’s in there? And you’re going to see it, because the more it gets filled, the more it’s going to bleed into everything you do.
Going back to Matthew 12, where Jesus is rebuking the Pharisees, look what he says: “For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil.” It’s the same verse, just said a different way.
Just to drive this home a little more, Psalm 119:11. David is speaking: “Your word I have treasured in my heart, that I may not sin against you.” The ESV says, “I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.”
To recap: the heart separated from God will naturally gravitate toward evil. The heart given to the Lord, exchanged for his heart, will be the heart that comes from him. Your heart has life flowing out of it. If your life looks ugly, then ugliness will flow out. If your life looks like Jesus, if Jesus is in that treasury, it’s beautiful. We have to understand that there are things being stored up. Everything we watch, everything we hear, everything that’s been spoken to us, everything we absorb and meditate upon is getting stored up there. Whether you’re aware of it or not, I guarantee it will show up at some point, good or bad.
WHAT IS HEAVENLY TREASURE?
So let’s talk about what this treasure is. Here’s a little cheat code: what’s the treasure of heaven? Jesus. That’s always the safe answer, but it’s the true answer.
Before we get to that, we have to understand there’s a clear contrast being made here. There’s earthly treasure, which the Lord isn’t inherently saying is bad, he’s just differentiating the reality. Earthly treasure is temporal. It’ll feed you for a moment, but moths will eat it. I know that firsthand. I have to get mothballs now, I moved down here to Florida, never had to worry about it in Tennessee, and now I have holes in all my shirts that y’all make fun of me for. So yes, moths will eat them, and things have to be paid for. It’s here, then it’s gone. Even if I have a lot of it, I can’t take it with me. Heavenly treasure lasts. It endures. It can’t be taken from me.
You know, even if you own your house, if you don’t pay your property taxes, you don’t actually get to keep it. You don’t own a single thing in this life, and that’s a hard reality you don’t realize until you’re an adult. But that’s not the truth in the kingdom. What’s given freely will never be taken away, because the Lord is not just a man, he’s the God-man, and his word will never be broken. When he speaks the truth, he’s reliable, he’s faithful, he’s true, and we can lean on that. When he gives something, he gives it because he loves you, and he won’t take it away, if you’ll receive it.
CHRIST HIMSELF IS THE TREASURE
We’re going to run through a lot of verses quickly here, like a charcuterie board of the treasure that’s available to you right now. Heaven is a physical location, and it’s coming to the earth. It came to the earth when Jesus entered into this realm. But Jesus went back to heaven, and he said it’s good that I go, because I’ll send the Holy Spirit to fill you with power and to lead you into all truth.
So how is heaven coming to the earth now? Through you. You’re a portal, you’re a gate. “Lift up your heads, O ye gates,” enter into his gates with thanksgiving and praise. I’m blending a couple of verses there, but they all hold true. If you’re tapping into your new nature found in Christ, and you’re accessing the treasures of heaven, you know what’s getting stored up inside of you? The character of Christ, the fruit of Christ. And once you can start to pull that treasure out, I can give encouragement to Matt, I can give encouragement to Kimberly, because the Lord has deposited his own nature as a son of encouragement inside of me. He speaks to me all the time, he’s so encouraging. It’s kind of obnoxious when you’re feeling some type of way, and he’s like, “Yeah, but don’t you see this right here? You see what I’m doing?” And I’m like, “Yeah, you’re right, gosh, you’re so encouraging.” But that starts to change your brain after a while. It starts to evolve you, you start to look different, if you’ll eat of it. And then you have it to give. If you need mercy, receive his mercy, and you’ll be able to give it a lot easier. If you need forgiveness, forgive yourself, because he forgave you when he died 2,000 years ago, and that will empower you to forgive those who have done you wrong.
Christ himself is the treasure. Colossians 2:1-3, Paul speaking to the church in Colossae:
For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you, and for those at Laodicea, and for all who have not seen me face to face, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding, and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
Colossians 1:26-27, ESV:
The mystery hidden for ages and generations, but now revealed to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Ephesians 3:8: “To me, the very least of the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ.” There are riches of God’s grace that we find in Christ. Ephesians 1:7-8: “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished on us in all wisdom and insight.”
Let me pause here and take time to actually slow down and read these. This is active listening. As something stands out to you by the Holy Spirit, we pray right now that he would highlight for each person in this room what he wants to give you a greater measure of. Lord, we need grace to walk this life the way you’ve designed us to. I thank you that you would highlight these things to those who need to hear them, and empower them through this. If something stands out, take it out of this moment and eat on it. If you need more treasure in a particular area, go to the Lord with what you’re hearing right now.
But God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved, and raised us up with him, and seated us with him in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come we might show the surpassing riches of his grace and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 2:4-7)
The riches of God’s glory are available. You know the glory of someone, like when you see someone who has great hair? Caleb’s got great hair, doesn’t he? That’s part of his glory. Look at me, I’m thinning. You ever see someone who’s incredible at something, an athlete, a professional? Isn’t there a measure of glory on that? It’s like, wow, that’s amazing. Now take that thought and apply it to Christ, his glory. He’s the best of all things you could think of, multiply it a billion times over, and you still haven’t touched a fraction of what’s there. He wants to actually share, he wants to co-glorify you with himself. Is that not an incredible joy? If we can just sit on that for a little bit and let the Lord unfold that, I bet you don’t treat yourself the way Jesus sees you and the way Jesus treats you. There’s an immeasurable glory waiting to be tapped inside of you. It’s far bigger. Even those of you who feel comfortable, who are a little more aware of it than others, we still have another measure.
All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are in him. Wisdom and knowledge will bring you wealth, influence, power, but it’ll bring it to you the way God designs it. What most people seek by seeking earthly riches is temporal, and it doesn’t make eternal impact. The irony is that if you’ll just seek the one who is wisdom, who is all-powerful, who is the most influential being, he’ll impart his nature to you, and he’ll put you in a place where you can handle it. You’ll be able to use those good things not for evil or wickedness, but to actually reveal him to a world that has been blinded from it.
Colossians 2:2-3, we’ll read it again: “That their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” I need more wisdom and knowledge to do everything he’s asked me to do. Lord, we pray right now that you would impart a greater measure of wisdom and knowledge. You’ve made it available. Would you help us to actually receive it, respond to it, and apply it in our lives in such a way that transformation is brought?
We’ve got the treasure of salvation and eternal life, the richness of Christ’s self-giving. Think of this, 2 Corinthians 8:9: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.” God himself stripped, set aside, actively limited himself to take on the nature of a poor individual. He was never poor, but he did it unto death on a cross, so that you might receive the riches that were always in him and will always be in him. The question is, do you want to receive it? Do you want to be benefited by it? We could go on and on, because Jesus is eternal, and he’s beautiful, he’s all-powerful, all-loving, all-kind, and we’re literally going to go on forever and ever.
HOW DO WE STORE UP HEAVENLY TREASURE?
For the sake of today, we’ve got about ten minutes left, and I need to speak to you about how you store up this heavenly treasure. We understand that the heart is a treasury, and what’s inside of it is going to be revealed. We understand that the treasure of heaven is Jesus himself, his attributes, his characteristics, his nature. So what does it look like, right now, while you’re here on the earth, to store up heavenly treasure?
I’m the eternity guy. If you’ve never read this book, you need to get it: Driven by Eternity, by John Bevere. That was what convicted me so hard when I was sixteen, smoking weed, running from the Lord. I didn’t give my life to him until I was twenty, but that seed stood inside of me for four years. We’re eternal, and we will give an account for how we live our lives right here, right now. We will be rewarded, or miss out on a reward, depending on how we walked. That is so clear in the Scriptures. Jesus is literally coming back with his reward in his hand, to give to each man, to each woman, for their work.
So what’s one way we can do that? Seek first his kingdom. We’ve talked about this at length, and we’ll continue to speak about it. Further down in this passage, Matthew 6:33, ESV: “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and these things will be added to you.” It touches that same thing again: what I could gain in seeking all these things for myself. The irony is that if I’ll just let go of what I think my life needs to look like, he’s going to bring me everything I didn’t even know I wanted or needed. And it won’t just be for me, I’ll have joy in it, but it will reveal him, it will point to him.
Those of you who know me know I have a business buying and selling Lego. I’ve loved Lego since I was a kid. I didn’t plan on having a business for the last five years buying and selling Lego. I didn’t know that was a possibility, that I could feed my family, by the grace of God, doing what I’ve done since I was a kid. But the joy of pursuing him is that he led me into that. I took my own stab at different businesses beforehand, and God was like, “That was a good job, buddy. All right, you ready for my plan?” And I said, “Yes, sir.” I’m thankful for it.
It’s not enough to just have a revelation of Jesus, though. We actually have to respond to Jesus. In John 14:15, he says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” That’s his written commandments, which is why we’re taking ninety days to look over his words, to hide them in our heart, to put them in our treasury. But you also need to have a relationship with him where you can hear the active word of the Lord, the rhema word of the Lord, because he’ll give you real-time direction day by day, week by week, month by month. Every quarter, our executive team takes a weekend to hear from the Lord, to get clarity and direction on where God is wanting to take the Resting Place. We do that with intentionality, I do that with my business, we do that with our families. I encourage you, if that’s foreign to you, you could talk to God about how to help a family member who’s acting up, or whatever problem you need solved in your business. In him are the riches of wisdom and knowledge, everything that you need. Not only will it solve the problem, it will bear eternal fruit and store up heavenly treasure that you’re going to have forever and ever.
Another point: you need to faithfully steward what God gives you when you start down this journey, and the Lord continues to clarify what it is he’s called you to. You get more and more clarity. There is a particular path marked out for you. He pre-ordained good works for you to walk in, good works that come from him and from abiding in him, not from striving, not from earning it. It’s rest. Relax in him, and when he shows you what to do, be diligent to steward it, and take the step he shows you. If you feel stuck right now, go back to the last thing he said to you. Keep stewarding that until he tells you something new, or he builds upon it, or he expounds upon it.
The last thing I want to say on this point: 1 Thessalonians 2:19: “For what is our hope, our joy, our crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming? Is it not you?” Paul is talking about those he’s labored among. Let me say it this way: live for eternal fruit. It’s easy for me to sit here from the pastoral perspective, from the ministry setting, and say it’s my desire, it’s Caleb’s desire, it’s the desire of anyone serving you here in a leadership capacity, that you run your race well, that you hear “well done, good and faithful servant.” But you don’t have to be in ministry, quote unquote, to do that. There are opportunities present everywhere, and it’s not just the proclamation of the gospel, it’s the way you love people in your day-to-day going. Just stop at the gas station you always stop at, say, “Hey, how are you,” to the attendant. They probably don’t want to be there, they probably don’t want to work that job, but you can at least be a light, and you can shine week over week, little by little, and love on them. Maybe there’s a moment where it’s slow, and you have an opportunity to have a conversation. Maybe you’re doing a business deal with someone who’s utterly destitute, and you do the deal, but you find out God put you in their life because they’re going through hardship, and a friendship is born out of it that eventually leads to their salvation, by the way you loved and cared for them in that season. There are so many layers to walking a life filled with, and led by, the Holy Spirit, and it’s never just a surface-level thing, never just the monetary transaction. There’s eternal treasure to be stored up, set aside, that will speak forever and ever.
Just to prove that point, and we’ll call Caleb up: think of David. He cultivated relationship with the Lord as a young man. He heard the testimonies of his forefathers, and he sang to the Lord, and it opened the door to relationship. He wasn’t perfect, but guess whose throne Jesus will be seated on forever and ever? The throne of David, the son of Jesse, in Jerusalem. David was just a boy singing to the Lord in a field, trusting him. He had no idea he was setting aside treasure when he responded in obedience, little by little.
Now think about this: we’re here today talking about out with the old, in with the ancient. We’re here today because twelve men, seventy individuals, a group that Jesus led, faithfully stewarded the word of the Lord in their season and their time here on the earth. And here we are, two thousand years later. Now we have that responsibility, for our children and future generations, to continue to store up treasure, not only in heaven but in our hearts, and to release it, so that this can continue, so that the Lord might be known to another generation, and it might be built upon.
So let’s shift our perspective. Let’s elevate ourselves a little bit more. I believe the Lord is inviting us to start thinking of things above in a new way, in a fresh way. How can we make an eternal impact in everything we’re doing?
CLOSING PRAYER AND BENEDICTION
Lord Jesus, we bless you, and I thank you that what you started, you actually established before the foundations of the earth. At the right time, you came in, you intervened two thousand years ago, and you died on a cross for us because you loved us, Lord. But that was just the starting point. What you did has now echoed throughout eternity, eternity past and eternity future. Lord, in the same way, you have invited us to store up heavenly treasure, to set our affections on you, and to look forward to the eternal impact that only you can make through our lives. If we’re out of alignment in any area, Lord, I pray that you bring us into alignment, because we want to do what you’ve called us to do, those good things you pre-ordained us for, because we love you. When our little life is up, this season, Lord, we want to lay our life down and say, “Lord, we didn’t have much, but what we had was a responsive heart to you, and we gave it to you,” and we want to hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” So that’s our prayer right now. Would you impact us in a greater way, elevate us, bring us into a higher place of unity with you, of intimacy with you, that we might respond to what you show us, so that your name might be glorified, so that your purposes might be accomplished here on earth as it is in heaven, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Welcome up, Leader Caleb.
Let’s say thank you to Jake. That was powerful. Can we stand together as we close? We’re going to have our prayer team come forward, and let’s not just walk away from a word like that. Let’s contemplate it in our heart, and let’s ask, where are we releasing treasure, and where are we not? Where are we withholding, or where are we giving? This morning, this prayer team is here for many reasons, but the primary reason is that if you’re here and you don’t know the Lord, if you don’t have a personal relationship with Jesus, if you haven’t given your life to him and received his life, then you’re still operating from that old heart. But today is an opportunity to get his heart and to live a new life. As soon as I say amen, you can come down and say, “I want to receive Jesus’s heart and give my heart to him.” You can do that. Also, if you have any pain in your body, if you need anything in prayer, if you have any prayer need at all, they would love to pray for you. They have faith for everyone. They’re here to serve you this morning, so please don’t just rush out, come on down and do that.
Make sure to get your kids from TRP Kids first. Even if you’re coming down to the prayer team, they will wait for you, I promise. Go get your kids, and then come back. We want the kids to see the Lord working as well. And we need to switch the room for the next gathering.
As we close today, I was meditating on what benediction to give you, and this is perfect, based on Jake’s message, out of Jude 1:24-25. I want you to receive this as a sending benediction. Maybe close your eyes, maybe open your hands, but this is straight out of the Word of God.
Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time, and now, and forever. Amen.
Bless you. Have a wonderful day. We’ll see you next week. Remember, connection class is after the next gathering. You’re welcome to come back for that. Bless you, bless you, bless you.
Transcript of a message delivered at The Resting Place Apostolic Family — Tampa Bay, FL — trpfamily.org