In this episode of Wednesday in the Word, we unpack Matthew 6:19‑24 to show how Jesus exposes what we are really living for. We'll learn what “treasure” is, why earthly rewards can never be secure, what it means to have a “healthy eye,” and why we cannot serve both God and money.
Key Takeaways:
- Everyone is storing up some kind of “treasure,” and that treasure always exposes what the heart truly loves.
- Earthly treasures are temporary and fragile, while God offers a treasure that can never be lost.
- Having “healthy eyes” means seeing reality clearly, especially the true value of God’s promises compared to worldly rewards.
- It is worse to be spiritually blind and think you see than to admit your blindness and ask God for sight.
- You cannot serve God and wealth. Sooner or later their demands will conflict and you will choose one master over the other.
- True blessing is learning to value God’s kingdom more than success, approval, comfort, or security in this life.
The Question Behind the Sermon on the Mount
Today we are back in the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew. Jesus gave this talk early in his public ministry, and it centers on one great question: Who will be accepted by God and enter the kingdom of heaven?
14 How to Understand the Sermon on the Mount Without Getting Lost (Matthew 5-7)
The whole sermon answers that question from several angles.
In the Beatitudes, Jesus described the “blessed” ones. They are blessed because they will inherit a place in the kingdom of God.
15 What is a Beatitude? (Matthew 5:1-12)
In the antitheses, he explained what it means for our righteousness to exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees. If we want the reward of entering heaven, we must seek God in a different way than they did.
24 Why Your Righteousness Must Surpass the Pharisees (Matthew 5:17-20)
In the third section, where we are now, Jesus begins to expose worldliness. He focuses on people who are too concerned with the rewards of this world.
He started this section with a clear warning:
“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.” Matthew 6:1
Then he gave three parallel examples of religious practices: giving, praying, and fasting. In each case the “hypocrites” perform the act for an audience. They do it, not to please God, but to win the approval of their peers.
31 How to Give, Pray, and Fast Without Being a Hypocrite (Matthew 6:1-6; 6:16-18)
Jesus says they have received their reward in full. They get exactly what they aimed for. They wanted human praise and that is all they will receive.
Worldliness
Their problem is worldliness. They are more concerned with what this world can give them than with what God has promised in the next.The passage we are focusing on continues that line of thought.
Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal,
but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.Matthew 6:19‑24
In this short passage, Jesus gives us three metaphors that belong together:
- Treasures on earth versus treasures in heaven
- The eye as the lamp of the body
- Serving two masters
What is Treasure?
Treasure is not a word we often use in everyday conversation, yet the concept is deeply human and important to Scripture. Every person seeks ways to make life good. We seek many things like:
- Security
- Health
- Love and happiness
- A sense that we are needed
- Rest
- Pleasure
Our treasure is whatever we cling to and count on to bring goodness into our lives. It is what we feel we cannot live without. It is what we hoard, protect, and build around because we think it will make life worthwhile.
The desire for a good life is not wrong. It is built into us. The issue is whether we are choosing our treasure wisely or foolishly.
A common mistake is to limit this passage to money and a big bank account. Wealth is certainly included, but Jesus’ language reaches wider. Wealth does not just sit in a vault. It brings other things along with it. Wealth can bring:
- Friends and social favor
- Pleasure and comfort
- The approval of your peers
- A sense of security and safety
- A feeling of self‑satisfaction, “Look what I have accomplished”
So our treasure is not just money. It is money plus everything we gather and cling to in hopes that it will bring us the good life. It is all the good things this world seems to offer, especially those money can buy or protect.
Can You Keep Your Treasure?
Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal,
but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. Matthew 6:19‑20
The first question Jesus raises is simple and very practical. Can you keep the treasure you are hoarding?
If you build your life on something you cannot keep, especially when another treasure is available that you cannot lose, then you are making a foolish trade.
The contrast is sharp.
- Treasure on earth is fragile. It decays. It can be taken from you.
- Treasure in heaven is secure. It does not corrode. It cannot be stolen.
Moths, rust, and thieves stand for the basic problem with all worldly treasure. You cannot hold on to it. It breaks. It is lost. It gets taken.
Jesus does not explicitly mention the greatest thief of all, but it is hovering in the background: death.
Death is the moth that eats everything. It is the rust that corrodes everything. It is the thief that takes everything. Even if you hang on to your earthly treasures for a time, in the end you will lose them all.
The Old Testament explores this theme often. Ecclesiastes especially returns to it again and again. Solomon speaks of vanity and chasing the wind. You spend your life hoarding good things, but in the end they slip through your fingers. You are left clutching air.
Jesus goes further. He does not simply expose the emptiness of earthly treasure. He reminds us there is another treasure available that does not decay and cannot be stolen. This is the treasure in heaven.
32 The Lord’s Prayer: What Jesus Meant by Thy Kingdom Come (Matthew 6:7-10)
Treasure in Heaven
So what does it mean to store up treasure in heaven?
It does not mean that when you die, you go to a heaven and God hands you a treasure chest. Scripture does not picture a heavenly vault where your good works accumulate like deposits in a bank.
Instead, the New Testament consistently points us to the return of Jesus. When Christ comes again, he will raise his people from the dead and establish his kingdom in full. The treasure we should truly want is resurrected eternal life in that kingdom and everything that goes with it.
Peter puts it this way:
Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober‑minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 1:13
Notice his focus. He does not tell us to fix our hope on what we will receive the moment we die. He tells us to fix it on what we will receive when Jesus is revealed in glory.
To store up treasure in heaven is to entrust your treasure to God. It is to recognize that anything we gather in this world will be lost. Therefore, instead of investing life in what is passing away, we invest our life in the promises of God. We fix our hope on everything we pray for in the Lord’s Prayer.
This is Jesus’ first point. Choose the treasure that endures. Go after what you cannot lose instead of what you cannot keep.
Location Matters
Then he gives a second reason why the location of your treasure matters. Your treasure and your heart always travel together.
“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Matthew 6:21
The Pharisees claimed that their hearts belonged to God. Outwardly they were very religious. They talked about the Law of God. They performed public acts of piety.
But their actions revealed a different treasure. What they truly wanted was:
- The admiration of their peers
- Public honor and status
- Financial security
- Respect as important religious people
If what you most care about lies here on earth, then that is where your heart lives. Your heart always follows your treasure.
To give your heart to God is not just to say you love him. It includes believing that His treasure is better than anything this world offers.
Healthy Eyes and Clear Understanding
Choosing the right treasure requires understanding.
You must be able to look at the treasures of this world and see them for what they really are. You must be able to compare them to what God promises and recognize that the world is offering you less.
If you lack this understanding, you will end up giving your heart to the wrong treasure. That is why Jesus moves to his second metaphor.
The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! Matthew 6:22‑23
Your eyes connect you to the world outside yourself. When they are closed, you are in the dark. When they are open and functioning, light enters and you can see. You can navigate, avoid obstacles, read faces, and learn.
In Scripture, light frequently stands for understanding. Light brings knowledge. It shows reality. It reveals what is actually there.
- A healthy eye takes in the light of truth and fills your whole life with understanding.
- A bad eye cannot receive light. You may think you see, but you remain in darkness.
That is why his warning is so striking. The physically blind person knows something is wrong. He says, “I cannot see. I need help.”
The spiritually blind fool says, “I see perfectly,” while stumbling in the dark. That is far worse. It is bad to lack sight. It is far worse to lack sight and refuse to admit it.
Scripture often stresses that knowledge is not passive. Truth does not simply float into our minds and automatically settle there. Our understanding is shaped by our will.
We are constantly receiving information, yet we filter what we accept and reject through what we want to be true. You can see this in something as ordinary as news coverage. Different groups can look at the same facts and interpret them in entirely different ways because they are committed to different stories about the world.
The Pharisees believed in God. They were serious about religion. Yet their understanding was distorted by desire. Deep down they wanted the treasures of this world, so they read Scripture in a way that let them chase those treasures while still feeling righteous.
They thought they saw clearly. In reality, the “light” in them was darkness.
Jesus is drawing on Old Testament imagery that his hearers would have known well. In Isaiah’s call to be a prophet, God says:
Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’ Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts,
and turn and be healed. Isaiah 6:9‑10
People see without really seeing. They hear without really hearing. Why? Because their hearts are dull. Their inner “eye” is not healthy. Proverbs uses the same imagery.
A man with an evil eye hastens after wealth And does not know that want will come upon him.
Proverbs 28:22 NASB
His “eye” is evil, distorted by greed. He chases wealth, blind to the fact that poverty is coming. He does not see wealth for what it is.
In John 9, after healing a blind man, Jesus says: “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind (John 9:39)."
The Pharisees hear this and ask, “Are we also blind?”
Jesus answers: “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains (John 9:41)."
If they had admitted their blindness and asked for sight, they would have been forgiven. Instead they insisted that they already saw everything clearly. That stubborn confidence in their own understanding kept them in guilt and darkness.
The people of God are those who have healthy spiritual senses. They recognize the truth when they see it. They look at Jesus and say, “I need him. He speaks the truth.” They look at God’s promises and say, “That is what I really need.” They look at worldly riches and say, “That is shifting sand. It will not last.”
Those are healthy eyes.
18 Jesus heals the Man Born Blind (John 9)
You Cannot Serve Two Masters
The third metaphor completes the picture.
No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. Matthew 6:24
At first the image may puzzle us. God is a person. He can speak and command. Wealth is not a person. It cannot literally give orders. So in what sense can wealth be our “master”?
Think of how a servant lived in Jesus’ day. Life went well for the servant who did what his master wanted. Life went badly for the servant who opposed his master’s will.
Wealth behaves like that in this world. It has its “rewards” and its “punishments.” To be “blessed” by wealth, you must play by its rules. Those rules can include:
- Long hours that leave little room for anything else
- Climbing the corporate ladder at the expense of relationships
- Flattering the right people and ignoring the wrong ones
- Cutting corners ethically if it increases the bottom line
God also has His way for us to live. He calls us to:
- Love our neighbors as ourselves
- Trust His promises even when we cannot see the outcome
- Act with generosity, kindness, honesty, and humility
To be blessed by a master, we must serve that master. That is true of God. It is also true of wealth.
So why can we not serve both? Many people hold two part‑time jobs, after all. It is possible to report to two supervisors in different settings. The problem comes when there is a conflict of interest.
Imagine you work part‑time for the government, writing regulations for wineries, and part‑time running a winery. At some point a decision will arise where what helps one side harms the other. You cannot fully serve both. Sooner or later, you will favor one and disadvantage the other.
That is what Jesus is saying. When he talks about “hating” one master and “loving” the other, he is not describing feelings of affection. He is describing actions.
- To love in this context is to work for someone’s interests.
- To hate is to work against those interests.
You cannot always work in the best interest of both God and wealth. Eventually, their demands will clash. You will face a moment when:
- Obeying God will cost you money, status, or security, or
- Protecting your wealth will mean ignoring or twisting what God commands
You can only keep one master pleased in that moment. You will serve one and harm the other.
To be clear, there is nothing wrong with working for a living. Paul insists in his letters that people should work and not be idle. Honest work and self‑reliance are good ways to love our neighbors.
The issue is not whether you earn money. The issue is whether you serve money. True believers are learning, slowly but surely, to value the promises of God above the treasures of this world.
36 Why You Can’t Serve Two Masters And What Happens When You Try (Matthew 6:19-24)
Summary
Jesus’ three metaphors now line up.
- Treasure: Earthly treasure is temporary, heavenly treasure is eternal. Your heart follows your treasure.
- Eye: A healthy eye sees this clearly. A bad eye is blind but thinks it sees, and so chases the wrong treasure.
- Masters: God and wealth will not always ask the same thing from you. In the end, you will serve one and forsake the other.
All of this is still part of Jesus’ warning about following the example of the Pharisees. They are outwardly religious but inwardly worldly. They want the riches and rewards of this life and they refuse to see the conflict between that pursuit and truly serving God.
Jesus is urging his listeners, and us, to seek a the treasure of heaven and not the riches of this world.
We are built to worship. We will all serve something. The God who created you wants you to worship Him, love Him, and He loves you in return.
Jesus came to redeem the lost. He takes broken sinners and successful fakers and makes them into people who are holy and good.
Your sins are worse than you think, yet you are loved by God more than you can imagine.
So whether you are clinging to your resume, beauty, pedigree, or success, hoping they will give your life meaning, or whether life has already hit you hard and you are desperately looking for an anchor in the storm, the answer is in the gospel.
You cannot keep the treasures of this world, and they will not solve your deepest problem.
You can keep the treasures of heaven, and they will.
Once you have eyes to see that, the choice becomes clear.
Please listen to the podcast for more detail and explanation.
Next: 13 How The Holy Spirit Seals God's People
Previous: 11 Why Work Matters More Than You Think
Series: Start Strong: A New Believer’s Podcast
Resources: Start Strong Book, Workbook, Discussion Questions, Lesson Plans
Photo by Sergei Lisovskiy on Unsplash
Season 27, Episode 12
Page Views: 0